“Great surgery, Doctor Clark. Definitely one for the books.” Ruth felt tired. They’d almost lost that patient on the table three times, but in the end, the team of surgeons won, and the patient currently lay in recovery. She looked forward to seeing her patient in the morning during rounds.
Ruth slipped the bandanna off her head as she pushed through the doors of the operating room, rolling her neck on her shoulders. “I am thrilled that we saved her. Thank you for the hand.” Her phone vibrated in her pocket. “That must be Isaac.”
She didn’t think of herself as Ruth anymore. No one ever called her by her old name, including her husband. Her name, for the last three years, was Esther Clark. She answered with a smile and waved at the anesthesiologist who turned in another direction in the hall. “Hi there.”
Victor’s voice came over the line. “Coals should be hot soon. Should I put the steaks on?”
Her stomach growled at the thought. “Definitely. Give me about thirty minutes, and I’ll head that way.”
After checking on her patients in the cardiac ICU, she updated charts, signing her three-year-old name, Esther Clark, so smoothly that a casual observer would suppose she had signed that name her entire life. Then she went to the locker room to change out of her scrubs. She paused when she looked at her reflection in the mirror on her locker door. The ever so slight changes made to her eyes, nose, and the shape of her mouth completely altered the way she looked. Sometimes it startled her. Because of her complexion, she couldn’t do much to change the color of her hair, but she did cut it short, so it fell in sharp lines against her cheeks, straightened it, and added bold highlights to it.
She’d gotten used to the way Victor looked now. He looked far less Slavic. Sometimes, she missed his old chin. Other times, she could hardly remember what he’d looked like before.
She stepped out into the humid air of the South Carolina coastal town. After her time in Florida, she’d vied for another Florida placement. Because of the trial’s publicity on the heels of the publicity of her saving the teenager, the Marshals turned her down flat. The closest they allowed was South Carolina. She’d suffered through a colder winter than she’d wanted, but as June gave way to July, she found she loved the hot, humid summers here as much as she had in Florida.
“Good night, doctor!” She looked up and waved at one of the nurses who had assisted in the surgery.
Digging through the pocket of her jeans, she pulled out her key fob and remotely unlocked her car. Out of cautious habit, she remotely locked it and unlocked it twice. Then, she hit the remote start function. As usual, the car didn’t explode. At least now that the sun had gone down, the heat wouldn’t suffocate her, and the car seat wouldn’t sear the backs of her legs when she got in the car.
As she opened the door, something wrapped around her neck. Startled, she reached up and felt a man’s arm. Her key fob got ripped from her grasping fingers before she could activate the panic button or use it as a weapon. “Hello, Doctor Burnette,” a heavily accented voice growled in her ear. “I’ve been looking for you for such a long time now.”
She felt the prick of what must have been a needle going into her neck, and almost immediately, her world went gray, then black.
Victor, now known as Isaac Clark, checked his watch for the tenth time in ten minutes. She should have gotten home over an hour ago. If a patient had caused the delay, she would have texted. In their three years of marriage, she always called or texted when she was delayed.
He looked at Major, who sat at the window, his ears up, straining to hear. Major whined and chuffed. “I know, boy. I’m worried, too.”
He almost dropped his phone when it rang, her face flashing on the screen. “What happened?” he asked immediately.
“Your wife is the guest of honor at our family reunion,” the voice on the other end said in Russian. He recognized his uncle Boris Kovalev’s voice.
His blood froze in his veins, and he felt his hand tighten on the phone. “Where—?”
“Shut your mouth, or I’ll go ahead and kill her right now.” Victor clenched his teeth and took a deep breath through his nose. He could feel his heartbeat pulsing in a vein in his neck as his blood pressure spiked. After a few seconds, Boris said, “That’s better. You can meet me. We’ll spar. It will be just like old times.” As he started to hang up the phone, he heard Boris’s voice again. “Oh, and don’t call your Marshal friends. Marco cloned your phone. I know what calls you make and receive. You call them? I take my time when I kill her.”
Major jumped up and pranced to the door when he grabbed his car keys. Should he take him along? No. No distractions. “Stay,” Victor commanded.
The dog whined but dejectedly walked back to his bed and lowered himself onto the cushion. He looked like he was ready to spring up at a second’s notice, though. Outside, Victor got into his truck and started the engine. Where to? What did Boris mean by spar? He no longer boxed. He taught gym at the local high school. Could Boris be in the high school? Deciding to head in that direction, he turned left at the next intersection.
Five minutes later, he idled outside on the side of the road near the high school’s back parking lot. At the entrance to the building that housed the basketball court, he saw a black sedan pulled up to the curb. He immediately knew Boris and Ruth waited inside for him. He sat there for five full minutes but saw no movement anywhere around the building. Did that mean that Boris hadn’t put a lookout on duty, or was he just well hidden?
Overtly conscious of the ticking of the clock, he finally got out of his truck. Keeping as much in the shadows as possible, he ran across the parking lot, over the lawn of the school, and to the door closest to the faculty lounge. As quietly as possible, he unlocked the heavy metal door with his key. He slipped inside, bracing the door so it would shut without a sound. He paused, listening, waiting. Hearing no sounds, no approaching footsteps, no voices, he ran down the hall to the teacher’s lounge, his athletic shoes making no sound on the polished tile floor.
Mr. Lewis, the Algebra teacher, kept a cell phone in his locker. He said parents always asked for his cell phone number, and he finally got one that he used for contacting parents. Leaving it at school instead of taking it home made it a joke to him. His arrogance, though, created a perfect opportunity for Victor. He cracked open Lewis’ locker and pulled out the cell phone, using it to shoot Marshal Dean Tucker a text.
That small message would give the Marshal all the information he would need. Even though he worked out of an office three states away, he would dispatch law enforcement, and they would come in knowing that they dealt with a hostage situation.
After he left the lounge, he ran quietly along the hallways to the auto shop classroom. Once there, he found a hammer and screwdriver. He contemplated going to the Army JROTC wing, but he knew the weapons room had an alarm on it. While he wouldn’t mind summoning police by breaking into it, he didn’t know if the alarm would blare out through the school, and he had no desire to notify his uncle that he’d tried to steal a rifle from the rifle team supply.
Armed with just a hammer and screwdriver, he left the shop area and silently sprinted to the main entrance. Looking all around and seeing no one, he opened that door and let it shut loudly, allowing the metal clanging against metal to echo through the empty halls and announce his arrival. Quietly, he cracked the door open again and used a floor mat to prop the door open, hoping the police would arrive soon—not wanting them delayed with the need to figure out a way inside.
Ruth gradually opened her eyes. Mind foggy, unable to think, she struggled for a minute and discovered she couldn’t move her hands or her arms. As she became more aware, she felt the ache in her shoulders. When she tried to shift them, she realized that someone had tied her hands above her head. Confused and startled, she blinked, forcing her eyes open. Boris Kovalev stood in front of her, grinning at her, his gold tooth shining in the dim light.
The gag in her mouth muffled her startled cry. When she jerked backward, she finally realized that Boris must have suspended her from the ceiling. After swinging for a moment, she found she could stand on her tiptoes to stop the momentum and relieve the pressure on her arms. Bracing herself on her booted toe, she closed her eyes and assessed the situation. Boris had found them, he’d drugged her with something that made her brain feel like he’d stuffed it with cotton balls, and he hadn’t killed her yet. That could only mean that Victor was still alive, too.
More focused, calmer, she opened her eyes again. Boris laughed. “Glad you could join us. I worried I might have given you too big of a dose. Accidentally killed you before I was ready.”
Looking up, head pounding, she recognized the ceiling of the high school gym. Her neck ached, and vertigo assaulted her. Straightening her head again, she battled against nausea that swirled in her stomach. Her mouth felt impossibly dry around the gag. As she fought the impulse to be sick, she felt a cold sweat break out on her forehead.
“Don’t worry,” a man laughed. Ruth did her best to crane her head around and recognized, Marco. “Victor is here to save you.” He turned to his father and spoke in Russian. He walked toward her and put his nose next to hers. “He’s a good husband, isn’t he?”
She closed her eyes in pure defense against the manic evil she saw in his eyes. Silently, she began praying for her husband, praying that God would shield him from these men so bent on his destruction. Not caring about what happened to her, she just prayed he came out of there unscathed. Feeling a sob welling up in her chest, she tried to swallow it down. She would not give the Kovalevs the satisfaction of knowing the depths of her fear.