Mac breathed in through her nose and slowly exhaled in an attempt to slow down her racing heart. She couldn’t believe she’d ended up in the hands of this insane pervert. To her right, Petrović was busy doing something on the counter next to the table, his back to her. She shuddered, unable to see what he was preparing but sensing it was something that would make this nightmare even more terrifying.
Scanning the layout of the small room—at least what she could see lying flat on her back strapped to the table in the center of the room—she tried to formulate an escape plan. Whoever had helped Petrović kidnap her had stripped off the HAZMAT suit, leaving her in the jeans and t-shirt she’d worn underneath, and she shivered as the cold table penetrated the thin material. Glancing up, she eyeballed a large movable light directly above the table with a handle on the side, the kind you saw in operating rooms. Figuring this was some kind of examination room, given the light and the hard table she was on, she wondered if they were still somewhere at Children’s Hospital. An unexpected swaying, along with a sudden queasy feeling and Petrović grabbing the edge of the cabinet for stability, made that highly unlikely.
Given the fact that she suffered from seasickness any time she was on a watercraft bigger than a ski boat, it was more than likely she was at sea. But headed where?
By the time Petrović turned to face her, she’d managed to calm her nerves somewhat, determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had succeeded in putting the fear in her. From her previous encounter with him, she remembered that the more afraid she was of him, the more it turned him on.
Sick bastard.
“I see you’ve settled down, Mackenzie,” he said, moving closer to the examination table.
Between his fingers caressing her restrained arm and her queasy stomach, it was all she could do not to throw up, which would be disastrous with her mouth taped shut. She forced herself to look up into the face of the most evil monster she’d ever encountered. And she’d come across a few horrific scumbags in her time at the agency. She couldn’t speak, but even if the tape was removed, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Guess you’re wondering where you are,” he said in a low voice. “Suffice it to say, we’re on our way to Cuba and then to a place where your friends will never find you.”
She forced back a scream, then scolded herself for letting him successfully bait her—for giving him the ammo he’d use to control her, exactly like he’d done before.
She’d only seen Petrović without one of his many disguises a few times when he held her prisoner in Morocco. And only at night when he’d come to her bed. Looking at him now, she decided that some might find him attractive with his hazel eyes and shoulder-length dirty-blond hair that curled slightly on the ends.
Standing about five-eleven, he was wearing a gray uniform with PROFESSIONAL LAUNDRY CLEANERS embroidered on the pocket. She remembered vetting that company when they were preparing the hospital for a possible chemical attack. What had she missed? More than likely, that was how he’d gained access to the basement.
And to me.
No doubt he’d been the one who called in the tip about the deadly gas actually being at the convention center instead of the hospital. He’d chosen the perfect diversion to draw Ty and Ryan away from her, knowing she’d stay behind to make sure the canister they’d discovered wasn’t armed. She said a silent prayer that Griff and the team had found and successfully deactivated the weapon at the convention center—if there even was a canister there. Knowing how devious Petrović was, it might have been just a ploy.
And it had worked.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Petrović touched her arm. The sickening smile on his face turned her stomach. “I’ve missed you, my sweet. I’d all but given up on ever seeing you again after you were taken from me. Then I saw your beautiful face in Venezuela and couldn’t believe my eyes. It was like some higher power knew my deepest yearnings, knew I lived only to have you with me again.” He teased his fingers along the edge of the duct tape, running his thumb over her covered mouth. “This must be uncomfortable and irritating to your soft, exquisite lips. Lips that will be mine forever in just a few hours.” He leaned closer and whispered, “If you promise not to make a scene—not that anyone would hear you in the middle of the Caribbean Sea—I’ll take this off.”
She thought about this for a second before nodding, still trying desperately not to show fear. But when he pulled off the tape in one quick motion, she yelped, wishing she could punch the smirk off his face.
“There. Now we can have the conversation I’ve dreamed of every day for the entire two years we were apart.” He brushed his lips lightly against hers.
It was all she could do not to bite down like she’d done to the other man earlier, or to spit out the taste of him on her lips, but common sense prevailed. If she was going to get away, she needed to play it cool. Her wits would be her weapon, and time her ally. She had to conjure ways to survive whatever he had in store until the team could figure out where she was and launch a rescue mission. But how did you fool the devil?
“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked, straightening up and reaching behind him. When he turned back, he was holding an IV bag with attached tubing. “We should be in Cuban waters in about eight hours and on a plane to my secret fortress shortly thereafter. Restraints are necessary until then.” He effortlessly inserted a needle into the crook of her elbow. She cringed, knowing his proficiency had come at the cost of countless unsuspecting victims.
“This bag is full of sugar and nutrients and will help keep you from getting dehydrated until we’re on my private jet,” he said, adjusting the flow. “Once we’re airborne, we can replace it with the best champagne money can buy.”
Oh God! If what he was saying was true, the team had a scant eight hours at best to find her. That wasn’t enough time. Even if they knew where she was, they had to be at least two hours behind, possibly more. Before they could catch up, she’d be on her way to whatever godforsaken place he was taking her.
She closed her eyes, racking her brain for a way to fight back.
The moment Griff reached the emergency room entrance at Children’s Hospital, he slammed on the brakes and jumped from the car. His feet barely touched the ground as he raced for the door. Flashing his badge at the two national guardsmen, he bolted through the entrance and toward the elevator, where he punched the down button with his fist. His heart pounded against his ribs as he waited an eternity for the elevator to arrive.
“Dammit! What’s the holdup with this fucking thing?” he hollered to no one in particular.
Spying the stairwell, he was about to make a mad dash in that direction when the elevator door opened. He scrambled in and pounded on the lower-level button several times. “It’s not true,” he said to himself. “It’s all a mistake. When the door opens, she’ll be there, smiling, telling me that everything’s okay.” His voice cracked, and he stared at the ceiling through misty eyes. “So, why the hell am I crying?”
But reality hit him in the face the moment he stepped out onto the basement floor. National guardsmen and Miami’s finest filled the room. Ryan and Ty stood next to the table that housed the suspected dud canister. Their faces said it all.
It was time for a gut check. Griff needed to suck it up and come up with a plan. Mac’s life depended upon it. “That thing been checked out yet?” Griff asked, pointing to the decoy weapon.
“Yes, sir,” a young guardsman responded. “Dr. Conley wanted the HAZMAT guys to transport it to the van just to be on the safe side, though.” He paused and lowered his eyes. “That was before she…”
“Before she what?” Griff barked, knowing that whatever had happened to Mac was not the fault of the young man in front of him but unable to stop the frustration and feeling of helplessness that caused him to lash out.
“Before she disappeared and we realized the security camera had been rigged,” the young man added sheepishly, taking a step backward, almost as if he knew the next barrage might not be verbal.
Griff glanced up at the camera in the corner to his left. “Is that the one?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about this one over the table?” He was desperate to find some logical explanation for how one person could dupe his entire team and some of the best-trained military troops in the State of Florida.
The young man shook his head. “Altered as well.”
Griff threw his hands into the air. “Jesus! How could that happen with all the fucking security we have down here?” He looked at Ty, then Ryan. “Did you lock down the entire hospital?”
“As soon as we realized Mac was missing,” Ryan responded.
“I want everyone questioned—including the janitors as well as the parents of the kids still here—to see if anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary. We’re at a disadvantage, since we have no idea how much of a head start that psycho has, so it’s critical for us to get answers now. Even a few minutes in his favor are too many.”
“Already on it, boss,” Ty said. “The only thing we’ve gathered so far is that they found the head of IT dead upstairs. We did locate another man who works in that department, though. He said there was a new guy on duty this morning. Introduced himself as John Harrison and said he’d been called in to replace Emil Gunderson, who normally works this shift. Said Gunderson had the flu or something. He’s—”
“I want to talk to that new guy now,” Griff interrupted.
Ryan stepped forward and stood directly in front of his boss. “That’s just it, Griff. We can’t locate him.”
“We sent a couple of uniforms to Gunderson’s house to check things out,” Ty added. “We should be hearing from them any minute now. We also have a black-and-white on its way to Harrison’s house.”
Griff was already thinking ahead to the possible scenarios. It was just too coincidental for a new guy to be there on this particular day. He rubbed his forehead, frustrated they hadn’t been more thorough with their instructions to hospital personnel. Time had been limited, and they thought they’d covered all the bases. At the very least, they should’ve made the employees more aware of the importance of reporting anything unusual today. “Good thinking, guys. Let me know the minute you hear something. In the meantime, see if our perp was caught on any of the footage before he disappeared.”
“Already checked,” Ty responded. “The guy managed to lower his head every time he got near our cameras, almost like he knew where every one of them was placed, even the hidden ones. All we can tell is that he’s about six feet tall with a medium build and olive skin.”
“Does that correlate with Gunderson’s looks?”
Again Ty shook his head. “According to a picture in his personnel file, updated two years ago, Gunderson is a big German dude, fair-skinned with blondish hair. He also weighs over two hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Shit!” Griff did a 360 around the room before turning back to his teammates. “Okay, we have to presume that Petrović’s got Mac and that he’s managed to escape unnoticed. How would he have done that?”
“Agent Bradley?” Griff turned to the guardsman now standing next to him. “Dr. Conley had a six-man detail protecting her. We’ve checked the entire basement but only found five bodies.”
Ryan moved up next to Griff. “One of them went with us to the convention center. His daughter was at the concert, and Mac ordered him to go. Said he’d be useless to her if all he could think about was what was going on at the convention center.”
It was just like Mac to worry more about the teenager than her own safety. “It’s all starting to make sense to me. More than likely, Petrović had inside help from one or more of the law enforcement officers. Whoever it was made sure the cameras were jammed at precisely the right moment.” He squinted and scanned the room, stopping at a ramp that led to a service door. “There. That’s where he probably made his getaway, right under everyone’s noses.” He walked over to the area before continuing, “My guess is that as soon as the dirty cop or cops were no longer necessary, they were rewarded with a bullet to the back of the head.” He pushed the button next to the door, and it opened into the delivery area in the back of the hospital. “Damn it,” he said under his breath, knowing he was probably looking at Petrović’s escape route.
“Mister, you can’t be out here,” a middle-aged man in uniform shouted from several feet away. “The hospital is in lockdown.”
Griff reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his ID. “How long have you been out here?”
The man grabbed the badge from Griff and studied it intensely for a moment before handing it back. “About four hours, Agent Bradley. Sorry I gave you a hard time.”
“No problem.” Excited that this might finally be the first big break he needed to figure out how Mac had disappeared, Griff asked, “Did you see any vehicles out here in the last few hours? An ambulance, maybe?”
The officer nodded. “No ambulance, but Professional Laundry Services was here making their daily pickup and delivery.”
“They do it every day at this time?” Griff asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you recognize any of the men from the laundry?”
The officer rubbed his forehead as if in deep thought. “I was busy surveilling the area and didn’t pay much attention, since it wasn’t anything unusual. But now that you mention it, I didn’t recognize the guy. That, in itself, also isn’t unusual, though, since they use a lot of different drivers. I remember thinking the company must spend a ton of cash just on new employee orientations alone. Figured it was a shitty—pardon the pun—job carrying off dirty hospital linens, and that’s why they had such a frequent turnover rate.”
Griff inched closer, if that was even possible, and stared at the officer’s name badge. “Think, Roscoe. It’s important you tell me everything you can remember.”
Roscoe wrinkled his brow. “Like I said, I was preoccupied at the time and—”
“Any detail will help, even the small things that on their own wouldn’t ordinarily catch your attention.”
Roscoe rubbed his forehead again. “Sorry. I’m drawing a blank. There was nothing that caught my eye as being unusual. The truck pulled up, and the driver jumped out and waved to me, just like always, before he shoved an empty cart down the ramp. Ten minutes later, two guys wheeled the loaded cart back out and lifted it into the van.”
“Two guys? I thought you said the driver took the empty cart into the hospital. Was there another man?” A sinking feeling paralyzed Griff as his brain switched to high alert. Either Petrović himself had been in the basement waiting for an opportunity to kidnap Mac, or he’d been in the empty laundry cart that was brought into the basement. Regardless, it had been too easy and never should have happened. His detailed security plan had been a class-A fuck-up.
“Well, shoot! I never thought about that,” Roscoe muttered. “It didn’t seem out of the ordinary until now.”
“Did you at least see which direction the van went?”
The officer shook his head. “No, sir, but I happen to know the laundry is located in the south part of town.”
“Ryan, get someone over there now to question the driver.” Even as Griff barked out the command, he knew it would be a dead end. They wouldn’t find the driver at Professional Laundry Services. He was certain now that Mac was in the hands of Joseph Petrović and that he had one helluva head start.
“Griff?”
He turned to face Ty.
“Just got the call. When the uniforms arrived at Harrison’s house, they found the maintenance worker dead. Shot execution style. Still haven’t located Gunderson, although his wife says he didn’t come home last night and definitely does not have the flu. She filed a missing-person report about three hours ago, since she hasn’t heard from him and can’t reach him on his cell phone.”
Griff inhaled sharply, hearing what in his heart he already knew. Despite their best laid plans, Petrović had managed to outsmart them. Griff had been outsmarted before, but never when the end result was catastrophic. This time Dr. Death had gotten away with a prize far more valuable than the money he’d probably received for the deadly chemical weapons.
This time he’d made off with the only woman Griff had ever loved. And Griff knew he had to get her back…or die trying.