Mack fought the darkness, pushing through a gray haze to get to Riley. Every time he thought he’d make it, he slipped back into the abyss. Someone threatened Riley. She was in trouble. He couldn’t just lie there and let her be taken or harmed.
Again, he pushed through the thick gray cloud and blinked open his eyes. Gloom still surrounded him.
The murmur of voices let him know the dimness wasn’t from unconsciousness, but the lack of light in the room where he lay with his face on a hard surface.
“Mama, is the man dead?” a child’s voice asked.
“I don’t know,” a woman’s voice responded.
Then a soft hand brushed across his brow and reached down to touch the base of his throat. “He’s still alive,” she said. “Get my cell phone.”
The patter of bare little feet sounded on the floor, passing by Mack’s head. He could see the shadow of a very small child inching past him to the open doorway.
Mack shifted his hands beneath himself and pushed his body up to a sitting position. His vision blurred, and he nearly threw up.
“Mister, you should lie down until I can call an ambulance. You could have a brain or spine injury. Movement could make it worse.”
He turned his head to see the woman named Bridgett kneeling beside him. The movement made his head swim and his vision fade. Forcing himself to stay awake and alert, he moved his head more slowly, taking in the room, the bed, two very small children and the sound of another moving about the house.
“Where’s Riley?” he asked, his voice gravelly, his tongue feeling like he’d swallowed a wad of cotton. He frowned. “And Toby. Where’s the boy?”
Bridgett’s forehead wrinkled and her eyes filled. “They took Miss Lansing and the boy.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.” She wrung her hands.
“Why didn’t you try to stop them?” As soon as he said the words, he knew they were stupid and spoken in anger. Not anger at Bridgett, but at himself for not anticipating the attack or hearing their approach.
“They told me if I interfered, they’d kill me.” Bridgett held open her arms as the oldest of her daughters ran back into the room carrying a cell phone.
Bridgett wrapped the child in the curve of one arm while she took the cell phone in the other hand. “I’m calling for an ambulance and the police.”
“Don’t do it for me. I’ll be gone before they get here.” He bent forward, dragged his feet beneath himself and stood. As soon as he was upright, he swayed and staggered a few steps. He braced his hand against the wall and waited for the dizziness to pass.
“Sir, you should sit until the EMTs arrive,” Bridgett said. “You could have a concussion.”
“I can’t sit. The more time that passes, the farther away they will get with Riley and Toby.” He pulled his own cell phone out of his pocket and hit the number for Declan.
Declan answered after the first ring. “Mack, where are you?”
Mack touched the back of his head and winced. “I’m at the house of the woman who performs janitorial services at Quest. She had Riley’s brother. We were attacked, and now they have Riley and Toby. Get Jonah on that GPS tracker and find Riley. Did Pruett have anything else to say? Was his only contact Bridgett with the cleaning service?”
“He confessed to making the call to Riley so that she could hear her brother’s voice. But he swears he only ever had contact with Bridgett.”
“And do you believe him?” Mack asked.
“He sounded legit.” Declan chuckled. “And Gus might have scared him a little.”
Mack’s lips curled slightly as he imagined Gus getting in the overwrought engineer’s face. Then his jaw tightened. “We need the names of the people who forced Bridgett and Pruett to do what they did. More than that, I need directions to where they’ve taken Riley and the kid.”
“Working on that,” Declan said. “Jonah’s on it. As soon as he’s got her in his sights, we’ll feed you the information. He’s also been busy going through all the people Riley has had immediate contact with. We’re not getting much of anything.”
“What about the nanny?” Mack asked.
“We searched on her name and traced her back to where she lived next door to Riley’s home when she was growing up. Margaret Weems moved in at the same time as the Lansings. We didn’t find any other information on her previous residence. It was a dead end.”
Too many dead ends.
“I’m heading for the car. As soon as you get a bead on Riley, call.” He ended the call and glanced at Bridgett. “Are you going to be all right?”
She gathered her children around her and nodded. “I didn’t want to do it, but I’m going to my mother’s house in Raleigh tonight. I don’t feel safe here.”
“Good. In the meantime, lock your doors.”
Bridgett shook her head. “That didn’t do much good for me. You were able to get in.”
“True. Take what you need and leave as soon as possible.” He headed for the door.
Bridgett reached out and touched his arm. “Are you going to tell the management at Quest I took some of their supplies?”
“I’m not,” he said.
Bridgett drew in a deep breath. “I’ll purchase the toilet paper I took and return it. I can’t afford to lose my job over three rolls of toilet paper. I just couldn’t afford to buy any, what with the cost of child care taking most of my paycheck.”
Mack felt for the woman but couldn’t afford to stick around, not with Riley in danger. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a business card and a wad of cash. He pressed them into her hand. “Take the money, get the kids to a hotel room and call this number in a couple days. Mrs. Halverson might be able to help you.”
Bridgett pushed the money back at him. “I can’t take your money. I shouldn’t have taken the supplies. I’m responsible for my actions and my children. I’ll do what’s right.”
Mack curled her fingers around the money and card. “We all need a little help sometimes. Keep it.”
He didn’t give her the opportunity to hand it back a second time. Mack left her house and ran the two blocks to Riley’s vehicle. Once he was inside and had switched on the engine, his cell phone rang.
“We have her on the tracking program,” Declan said. “You’re on speaker with Jonah.”
“Give me the directions,” Mack said as he whipped the car out onto the road.
“Head into downtown DC.”
WATER SPLASHED ONTO her face brought Riley to consciousness. She snorted some up her nose and coughed. When she tried to raise her hands to push the wet hair out of her face, she couldn’t move her arms.
She looked down at where her wrists were duct-taped to the arms of a utilitarian metal office chair. For a moment, her brain couldn’t grasp what was happening. Her gaze shot around the room, taking in the concrete block walls of what appeared to be a basement lit by a single dull yellow light hanging by a cord from the ceiling.
Riley’s pulse skittered in her veins, and her gut knotted. She pulled at the tape binding her wrists to the chair.
“You didn’t think you could lie to us and get away with it, did you?” a deep male voice said from behind her.
A man circled her. He wore dark pants, a dark shirt and a fedora pulled low over the bridge of his nose. The minimal lighting cast a deep shadow over his face.
Riley couldn’t tell who he was, nor did she recognize his voice. She could sense the danger in the way he walked and tapped a metal rod against the palm of his hand.
He hit a switch on the metal rod and touched it to her bare skin.
A jolt of electricity blasted through her.
Riley screamed, the pain so blinding it nearly made her pass out. She dragged in a breath, fighting to remain calm. “Where is my brother?”
The man tapped the wand against his palm again. “You will never see your brother again.”
“Like hell I won’t.” Riley jerked against her bindings. She planted her feet against the floor and tried to rise, chair and all.
A strong hand clamped down on her shoulder, forcing her to see sit down.
“Charlotte Halverson lives.” The man paced in front of her. “Your job was to kill her. Because you did not fulfill your duties, your brother is lost to you forever.”
Riley sat silently, anger burning deep inside. She refused to believe she would never see Toby again. If it were the last thing she ever did, she’d find her brother and kill the people who stole him from her.
“Do you know what we do with agents who are not loyal to the mother country?” He smiled, his lips parting in a feral grin. “Some would think that we would kill the agent.” The man snorted. “That would be too easy. We do not waste years of training without first attempting to re-assimilate the protégé back into the fold.”
He paced several steps in front of her, turned and paced back the way he had come, all the while tapping the rod against his palm.
Riley tried to memorize the contours of the man’s face and commit them to her memory for when she would track him down and kill him. But after a few minutes of watching him pace, she shifted to the rod in his hand, knowing what pain it could inflict.
The man in black stopped in front of her and barked out, “Who do you work for?”
Riley bit down hard on her tongue to keep from answering.
The wand shot out and bit into her arm, sending a shock of electricity through her body.
Riley clamped her jaw tight, refusing to even whimper, though the pain was excruciating.
His eyes narrowing, the man in the fedora leaned closer, his fetid breath making Riley gag. “You will learn the proper response to that question.” He raised the wand again.
Riley dug her feet into the concrete floor, jerked forward and rammed her head into the man’s chest, knocking him backward several feet.
The fedora remained in place even though the man staggered, tripped and fell, landing hard on his backside.
Again, a hand clamped on her shoulder, shoving her back in her seat and the chair legs back to the floor.
She landed with a jolt that rattled her teeth.
Once the man on the floor rose, he hit her again with the electric prod.
Electricity shot through her entire body.
He held the prod against her arm so long the pain caused her system to shut down. Darkness became her friend.
MINUTES, MAYBE HOURS later, Riley awoke to someone tugging at the tape on her wrists.
When she opened her eyes, Riley stared into the eyes of Margaret Weems, her nanny.
“You won’t have much time,” the woman said.
“Margaret?” Riley blinked and stared around the room. “Why...how did you find me?”
“I can’t explain now,” she said. “Toby is in a room down the hall. You have to leave now, before they come back.”
“Before who comes back?” Riley shook her head. Then the images she’d thought were just a nightmare came back to her. “You need to get out of here. Go,” she insisted. “If they catch you, they’ll torture you.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She cut away at the tape on Riley’s right wrist, freeing her hand from the chair. Then she rounded to the other side and slipped the blade of a knife beneath the other band of duct tape and ripped through it as well.
Riley rose from the chair and peeled the rest of the tape from her wrists, taking a layer of skin with it.
“You have to hurry,” Margaret urged. “They will be back soon.”
“I’m not leaving without you.” Riley hooked the woman’s arm and half dragged her toward the door.
Margaret set her feet into the concrete and yanked her arm free of Riley’s hold. “Go without me. I will only slow down you and Toby.”
“But they will kill you.”
“My job here is done.” Margaret stepped backward. “It is time for you to make your own decisions about who you are and what you believe in.”
Riley shook her head, her eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”
“I was there when you were born. I worked alongside your parents when you got your training.” She lifted her chin. “I knew what they had planned for you, yet I still didn’t stop it from happening. It was my job to protect you and your brother until such a time when they would call you to duty.”
“What are you talking about?” Riley stared at the woman as if for the first time. She’d known Margaret all her life. The woman was like the grandmother she never had. Riley trusted her with her life, and more importantly, Toby’s life.
Margaret’s gaze shot toward the door. “You need to leave now.”
“You need to come with me,” Riley said.
“No,” she said, “my job is done. They will hunt me down for releasing you.” She shook her head, the lines around her eyes and mouth seeming so much deeper. “I don’t have the strength to run.”
Riley’s chest squeezed tightly. “I don’t know what you’ve done, or what role you played in kidnapping my brother. But I won’t let them hurt you.”
Margaret held up her hand with a small pill pinched between her fingers. “They won’t hurt me,” she said with a smile, and slipped the pill beneath her tongue.
Riley leaped toward the woman, but she was too late.
Margaret dropped to her knees and slumped to the floor. She coughed twice, and foam bubbled from her mouth.
“Holy hell, Margaret.” Riley knelt beside her. “Spit it out.”
Margaret shook her head and raised her hand. “Take my ring.”
“No, Margaret, you wear it.” Riley held the woman’s hand and stared down into her eyes.
Margaret coughed again. “Take the ring. It has meaning. Find it, and you will know what to do.” Her last words faded into silence, and all tension left her body.
Riley pressed her fingers to the base of Margaret’s throat, searching for a pulse. There was none. Her nanny, and her old friend, was dead.
As she released Margaret’s hand, she felt the cool metal of the ring Margaret had wanted her to take. She recognized it as one Margaret had always worn on her right hand. It was made of yellow gold, white gold and rose gold bands twisted together. The ring had seemed very important to Margaret. What she meant about finding the meaning of the ring made no sense to Riley. She didn’t have time to work through the riddle. Instead, she slipped it from Margaret’s finger and pushed it into the pocket of her jeans.
The sound of footsteps alerted her to people moving in the hallway outside the door.
Riley dived behind the door as it opened.
A large man dressed in black, wearing a black ski mask, stepped into the room and nearly tripped over Margaret’s body. As he bent toward the woman on the floor, Riley balled both fists together and hit the man in the side of the head as hard as she could.
The big man fell over on his side.
Before he could rise, Riley kicked him in the face, breaking his nose.
The man yelled, his eyes teared, and he grabbed his face and hunched over.
Riley dived past him into the hallway. She didn’t know which door hid Toby, but she vowed to find him and free him before these monsters tortured him as well.