She might have bruised and scratched feet, but Kristen Lang was a runner. By the time Nick was able to scramble from his vehicle and dash after her, she was almost at the river.
“Kristen, stop,” he shouted several times.
She continued to sprint around a curve, between trees, out of his sight. Though he couldn’t see her, he heard her, the crunch of gravel beneath her sneakers, the crackle of branches she brushed past. Then nothing.
Nick halted, listening. The woods were quiet. Too quiet. The birds had fallen nearly silent. Kristen no longer sprinted along the path, or she had figured out how to run without making a sound—an impossible feat.
Something was wrong. Nick didn’t need to see what had happened ahead of him to know trouble had fallen on Kristen. On Kristen and, by association, on him.
Part of him thought he should get out of earshot of the river and call for help. Help, however, would probably take too long to get there, especially if he turned back and crept away as quietly as he could manage.
He did the next best thing and texted his boss. KLang at rendezvous site. Maybe trouble.
He waited for a response. None came. He texted again. Advise course of action. She won’t come with me.
The response came at last. Make her.
Great. He was to forcibly remove Kristen from the park. How did Callahan propose he do that? He didn’t have handcuffs, moving her at gunpoint seemed ridiculous overkill, and he could hardly pick her up and toss her over his shoulder.
Though he hadn’t minded carrying her the night before when her feet were bleeding.
He shoved that memory aside. Now was not a time to think about his attraction to a lady he scarcely knew.
Will do my best. He had barely hit Send when he heard the whine of the outboard motor.
The outboard. A boat. A wide-open river.
Nick started to run. So what if he sounded like a heard of cattle charging across the prairie? He knew how to put two and two together and jump to an all too likely conclusion.
Kristen’s running stopped. Silence. Then the starting of the motorboat.
He prayed he was wrong. She was merely crouching behind bushes watching and waiting. The motorboat had started up because the passengers wanted to be on their way.
He broke through the trees to see the river flowing slow and smooth before him. Yards of river between the bank and the boat. And in the boat, a man twice her size crowded beside her, sat Kristen.
Nick didn’t think further than tossing his cell phone and gun onto the riverbank and kicking off his shoes. Then he dove into the river and began to swim. He was a strong swimmer, but he was swimming in a race against a motorized boat. If the men in the craft, the one driving and the one seeming to guard Kristen, looked back, they would see him. They could run him down, tear him up with the blades of the motor, swamp him with their wake.
He stayed below the surface as much as he dared. The water was murky. Fortunately, the current was slow on this prairie river through flat land. And they were moving downstream with that current.
Still, he would never catch them. Strong swimmer or not, the motor pulled the boat farther and farther ahead of Nick.
Until he noticed the tone of the engine change from the high whine of speed, to the putt-putt-putt of a boat slowing.
He lifted his head from the water in time to see the boat turning toward him, coming straight at him.
He dove deep, reaching for the bottom of the river. Water magnified the motor to a roar above him. He saw the shadow of the craft slip over him, then swing around for another pass.
He had to surface. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer. If he came up at the wrong place and time, the boat could plow him under, injure him, even kill him.
Maybe they would move on. They had what—who—they wanted.
Kristen captive in their boat.
With Kristen captured, they wouldn’t let Nick, a deputy U.S. marshal, go. Killing him was their intent.
He would drown and do the job for them if he didn’t surface. Attempting to swim toward the bank, more out of the boat’s trajectory, he pushed himself to the surface and gasped for air. Before he had inhaled a lungful of oxygen, the driver of the boat saw him and drove straight at him. For a heartbeat, Nick looked into the man’s eyes, saw the murderous intent. Then Nick dove. The water rocked him with the boat passing too close overhead.
Passing over and stopping, motor whining to a painful pitch before dying altogether.
Nick surfaced again, treading water as he saw the boat trapped in a tangle of brush along the bank. Intent on running Nick down, the driver had plowed the prow right into the soft bank.
Under other circumstances, Nick would have laughed. But he was cold and wet, his clothes beginning to feel like leaden weights on his arms and legs, and Kristen was in that boat.
All he could think to do was attempt to tip it over. Not that difficult. The boat was barely large enough for the two men and Kristen. In the ensuing scramble to not drown after he capsized the boat, he could grab Kristen and get them away.
He swam toward the craft and launched himself out of the water high enough to grasp the gunwale. The boat tilted, but not enough. The prow in the bank kept it from tipping.
Still holding the side with one hand, Nick reached the other hand toward Kristen, curled his fingers around her arm.
She started to lean toward him. Then suddenly she was down, wrenched from his hold to land on the bottom of the boat. Nick caught the gunwale with his freed hand to maintain his position. A mistake to stay. He should have shoved himself away and swum toward the bank, run for help. Marshals would certainly be arriving at the park any moment now. But he’d been too intent upon saving Kristen and now faced the round eye of a gun pointed at his face.
“Get in,” the burly man growled.
“Nick, no.” Kristen hurled herself between Nick and the pistol.
The burly man grabbed her shoulder and held the gun against her temple. “Get in,” he repeated to Nick.
Nick climbed into the boat and kneeled on the bottom. “Now what?”
Kristen longed for the strength to pick him up and drop him back into the water. He had come after her. He shouldn’t have come after her. He was ruining everything with his overblown sense of duty.
“You’ll take a little ride with us.”
“Seems to me, you’re not riding anywhere.” Tone scornful, Nick gestured toward the prow of the boat caught in the bank.
When he drew his hand back, he wrapped his arm around Kristen’s waist, pulling her against him. She shivered, but not from the cold wetness of his clothes. The frisson ran far deeper than a mere chill of her skin.
Maybe annoyance? With his arm around her, he couldn’t get away as easily if the men became distracted.
She pushed at his shoulder. He held on tighter. “I have a plan,” he murmured.
But they weren’t that careless. The man who had been piloting the boat was already using an oar to shove the craft away from the bank. Though the current wasn’t strong, it seemed to be enough to help tug the boat free with the aid of the oar. In mere moments, they were adrift on the river. Then the motor coughed to life and they were flying along the river, past trees, open land and houses. All the while, the burly man held the pistol to Kristen’s temple in a silent message for her and Nick not to move, not to speak.
But they weren’t tied up. Surely she could find a way to get Nick freed, if they remained unbound. They couldn’t remain on the river forever. It wasn’t that long and had dams to interrupt the open river for watercraft.
They were on the water long enough to carry them miles from the park. He had wet clothes and no shoes. And surely any firearm and certainly his phone would have been destroyed in the water. Kristen’s purse had been left behind. They would be tracked as far as the river and no farther.
Nick had to get out of this. Somehow. If the men were going to kill her and not take her in exchange for her mother, Kristen needed to get out of this, too. Nick would find an opportunity. The assurance kept her calm.
The men nosed the boat into the bank again, this time not at random, a planned destination where two more men met them.
“Get out.” The burly man with the gun seemed to be the only one who spoke, the only voice Kristen would be able to identify later if they got away, if these men were caught.
A gesture with the gun sent Nick over the side of the boat to half swim, half walk to the bank. Once he reached it, one of the men there dragged him onto dry land, then spun him around and bound his hands. His feet were free. He could run.
Kristen prayed he would, but of course he didn’t, this modern knight errant. He waited for her to splash through the thigh-deep water and scramble up the muddy bank. On dry land, she stumbled along, feeling sick. Nick smiled at her, trying to reassure her. In response, her lower lip quivered.
“Walk,” the burly man commanded.
They walked through brush and trees to a road that didn’t look traveled much or as if it got much attention. The blacktop was bubbled and cracked from the winter’s ice expansion and contraction. But one vehicle sat on the side of the road—a cargo van. Of course it was a cargo van. It was even white.
“How cliché,” Nick muttered.
Kristen swallowed hysterical laughter.
Nick’s remark earned him a jab in the back that sent him staggering into the open rear door of the van. His cheekbone collided with the frame. Kristen caught her breath. At best, he would have a bruise. At worst, a black eye.
“Get them in,” the burly man spoke to his cohort for the first time. “Secure them.”
“Wait.” Kristen grasped the edge of the door to the cargo bay and faced the men. “Where’s my mother?”
“None of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business.” Kristen glared at her captors. “You promised to free her if you got me, so you need to set her free.”
“As if these men have honor,” Nick said.
“I will think they do until they prove otherwise.” Kristen’s voice shook and she pressed her hands to her spasming middle, but she didn’t flinch from the man with the gun.
“Tie them up.” The burly guy’s gravely voice held no emotion, no appreciation of the gift Kristen had just bestowed upon him—a belief that he held a core of goodness.
The men trussed them up like chickens. Kristen knew Nick could have fought them, yet he didn’t. For her sake. He let himself get captured for her sake. Orders from his boss to keep an eye on her no matter what? Or something...more important?
The doors shut. Darkness descended on the interior. Darkness and quiet, save for the rumble of the van’s engine starting, the thud of other doors closing, the crunching of tires over uneven pavement.
The roughness of the road bounced Kristen off the side of the van, then into the middle. A thud and a grunt told her Nick suffered much the same discomfort.
“Try to brace yourself in a corner.” He spoke to her.
The van careened around a bend and Kristen slid into him. “I’m sorry.”
“No problem. Can you pull yourself up if you grab my shirt or arm?”
“I’ll try.” With a few “oophs” of discomfort, and a tear in Nick’s shirt, she used her bound hands to haul herself upright against his shoulder.
“I’ll try to scooch to the corner,” she said.
“No, stay.”
She stayed. She rested her head on his shoulder and loosed a long, shuddering sigh. “This is my fault. I should have listened to you.”
“You wanted to help your mother.”
“I needed to stop being the one everyone protects and do something for myself. I guess that’s why—” She broke off to take another long breath and suppress a sob.
“Kristen.” Nick’s voice was low and smooth. “Are you all right?”
“I...don’t...think...so.” A gasping breath punctuated each word. “I...c-can’t...breathe.”
“Panic attack?”
She nodded, seeing swirling lights before her eyes. Her head moved against his shoulder. “Closed in. Dark. My hands.”
“Kristen, slow down.” Nick spoke slowly, softly. “Breathe.”
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I’ve seen panic attacks before. You know, men and women locked behind bars for the first time have them a lot. And lots of people in school before tests.” He emitted a humorless laugh. “But I’ve never been responsible for getting someone through one.”
“You—you’re not responsible for me.”
“Sure I am. Think of sunshine, fresh air.” He spoke in a gentle, soothing tone. “It’s warm and smells like pine trees and maybe someone’s barbecue. And that was a mistake. I’m hungry now.” The twisting of her middle suddenly felt more like hunger pangs than anxiety.
“You’re going for a run,” he continued. “You like to run, that’s obvious.”
She liked to run away from things that bothered her.
“We’re running together along the lake. That’s hard, running on sand. But—”
The van slewed around another corner and Kristen flopped against the far wall with a groan of pain.
“Are you all right?”
She hauled in a wheezing breath. “Breath knocked from my lungs. I’ll have bruises. I think I’m okay now, though.”
At least the panic attack had fled without becoming fully blown. Yet as her mind cleared, she thought of other things, like why the men had been at the rendezvous hours early, why the marshals hadn’t been there, what these men would do to them. She and Nick had seen their faces. The men hadn’t tried to conceal them.
“Nick?”
“What is it?”
“Do you think the marshals or the FBI or anyone will find us before they kill us?”
“It’s entirely possible. But I don’t think they plan to kill us.”
“Of course they do. We saw them.” She was calm now, perhaps too calm. Resigned might be a better word to describe her mental state.
“We’ll do our best to stop them from something that drastic. It wouldn’t be good for their futures.”
She laughed. “Nor ours.” She fell silent then.
So did Nick.
Kristen fixed her concentration on ways they could get free. How to free their hands so they could untie their feet. They could run. Even if she had sore feet and Nick no shoes, they could run to safety.
The van stopped. Doors near the front opened and closed, and then footfalls crunched down the side. The back opened to twilight and a rush of cool air smelling of pine trees, damp earth and water.
“We’ll untie your feet so you can walk.” The burly man was still the only one of the men to speak. “Don’t even try to run.”
Nick met Kristen’s gaze for a moment. His lips curved in a half smile. Trying to reassure her. It didn’t work.
Two of the guys dragged Nick out of the van and let him stand before cutting the ropes around his ankles. If they did the same to her, she wouldn’t be able to kick one of them.
Patience, she told herself. Wait for your moment.
At gunpoint, the men marched them into a one-room hunting shack with a kerosene lantern for light and little furniture. They bound Nick to a kitchen chair with duct tape. Kristen they ordered to the sagging sofa and secured her ankles.
“Why do you want me?” Kristen asked.
“Not for me to say. The boss’ll be here by midnight.” The leader of the gang made his announcement, then blew out the lantern and left the cabin. He slammed the door so hard the structure shook. From the outside, Nick caught the scrape of a hasp sliding over a ring, then the click of a padlock, leaving Kristen and Nick tied and locked in darkness to wait for midnight.