Running on Empty (7 page)

Not knowing if he was supposed to speak the code or punch it in, Noah tried entering it first and received nothing but silence. He then spoke the code and almost immediately heard a clicking noise and then an older male voice said, “State time and location of the last time Ms. Fox was seen.”

“I don’t think so,” Noah said mildly. 

“Excuse me?”

Noah got the feeling this man wasn’t used to being challenged. There was not only surprise in the gruff voice but also amusement.

He wasn’t one to get into a pissing contest, especially when one of his own people’s lives was at stake, but he damn well wasn’t going to give information to some unknown person and then just back away. Sabrina was no longer a government agent. She was one of his, and he took care of his own.

“If we’re going to find Ms. Fox,” Noah stated baldly, “then we’re going to work together.”

“We don’t work with others.”

“Make an exception or you won’t get the information you requested.”

“You would put her life on the line?”

“Absolutely not. But neither will I kowtow to some secret government entity. We work together and we’ll find her.”

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

“Feel free to tell me.”

There was a long, silent pause. He wondered if the guy was even breathing. Finally, he said, “Very well, Mr. McCall. Meet me at the Lincoln Memorial in an hour.”

“How will I know you?”

“Don’t worry. I know you.”

Noah clicked the key to end the call and then sat back in his chair. Why did he suddenly feel as if he’d just made a date with the devil? 

Coley Springs, Idaho

Fury bubbling within him, Declan’s hands fisted at his sides. The unconscious woman before him had starred in every recent nightmare. Limp and lifeless on the cot, her black cotton T-shirt was a startling contrast to the bleached paleness of her face. Except for one jarring exception. 

“Dammit, Sabrina, where the hell did you get that bruise? I know I didn’t hit you. I couldn’t—”

No, of course he hadn’t hit her. The rage he felt at the vivid bruises on her soft, fair skin conflicted with the bitter hatred he had for this woman. Just how damn stupid could he get? He was planning to kill her…why did it matter that she was bruised? 

Was that why she was still unconscious? He’d given her only enough of the drug to disorient her. She’d rarely taken drugs, said they made her feel stupid and slow. But when she had taken them, there had been no adverse effects. So why had one small dose knocked her on her ass?

He touched his fingers to the pulse on her neck, telling himself to ignore her petal-soft skin. Her pulse was strong. Her breathing shallow, not erratic or fast. She was asleep, nothing more. Ignoring the surge of relief, he removed his fingers before he did something asinine like trail his fingers down her creamy skin to that tender hollow place at her neck. 

How many times had he kissed her there, relishing the warmth of her skin, the erratic beat of her pulse throbbing against his tongue as arousal had taken over? How many nights had he lain awake and watched her sleep? When she was awake and aware, her face was lively and animated. Asleep, she looked as innocent and serene as the Madonna. 

She had said more than once that she was no great beauty. Declan used to argue with her but had soon realized her inability to see herself as beautiful had been one of the ways she dealt with her past. As a teenager, she had been both sexually and physically abused by her stepbrother. One of the defenses the bastard had used against her was her looks—constantly drumming into her head that her beauty caused him to do the vile things he did. It had taken her years to overcome the psychological mind-fuck. Denying her beauty became one of her ways to deal. Declan hadn’t argued. Having his own demons to contend with, who was he to criticize her methods?

He pressed his fingers to the pounding in his skull. Why the devil was he even thinking about that time anyway? What they had shared had been a lie of epic proportions. Maybe she’d made the whole abuse thing up. She was an accomplished liar—something he had once appreciated. He’d just never figured she’d use her lies on him.

But lying there, unconscious and vulnerable, made her look as helpless and defenseless as a kitten—a slender, beautiful woman with the face of an angel. She didn’t look as though she could step on a spider, much less kill a man with her bare hands. He had watched her do the latter more than once. The woman was one of the most dangerous people he had ever known.

 Without a backward glance, he went out the door. He’d let her stew for a few hours. When the time was right, they were going to have a long, uninterrupted discussion. Neither of them would survive it.

Chapter Five

Consciousness returned in slow increments. First, she was aware of a hard surface beneath her body—not a bed—more like a thinly padded slab of concrete. The complete absence of noise was her next awareness. Shouldn’t there be street noise? Sabrina lay still and quiet for several minutes, carefully assessing. Her mind felt thick, unwieldy. Drowsiness tempted her to go back to sleep. An inner voice whispered an urgent message that all was not right. 

She struggled to hold on to thoughts that seemed as wispy and insubstantial as a spider web. Why? What had happened? Why was alarm replacing the dull lassitude? Her eyes fluttered, tried to open. She managed to lift one eyelid to a slit. What she saw forced both her eyes open in a blinding flash of realization and comprehension. Fury followed. Grogginess evaporated. She had been abducted. Who and why didn’t matter. There were probably thousands of people who would like to see her dead. Admittedly, only a fraction of those people would have the guts to actually kidnap her, but the number of those who would was still quite high.

She didn’t bother to question how she’d been taken. She didn’t remember anything after leaving Javier’s. Didn’t really matter. The only thing she needed to concentrate on was getting the hell out of here in one piece.

“You’re awake.” The mechanically distorted voice exploded into the silence.

Refusing to carry on a conversation with the disembodied voice while lying flat on her back, she sat up and put on the face she had perfected long ago. The one that said the instant she freed herself, heads would roll. 

Her surroundings were as harsh and austere as the bed had been. Her eyes roamed the small area, looking for the weakest point where she could make that escape happen.

“Don’t bother looking around. There’s nothing for you to see.”

Those words were true. She was in a square cinderblock room. Its contents: a cot, sink, and toilet. Nothing more.

“And no way to escape,” the voice continued.

She’d just see about that. “Why am I here?”

“All in good time.”

The voice was coming from the small speaker in the corner. She noted a camera as well. Everything she did, every move she made, could be seen. “Who are you? What do you want?”

Silence.

She pushed herself to her feet, cursing softly when her knees buckled and she fell back to the bed. She was as weak as a day-old kitten. Even if the door in front of her had been wide open, she honestly didn’t know if she would have been able to walk through it.

Whatever drug they’d given her, on top of the sleeping powder she had ingested, had temporarily disabled her. The instant she regained her strength, she would show them why her code name had once been Red Death.

Teeth gritted with determination, she went to her feet again. With slow, halting steps, she shuffled to the sink. Ignoring the filth and grime, she turned the faucet on and was relieved to see clear water. Though it was only a trickle, it was enough. She cupped her hands to gather the liquid, drank her fill and then splashed her face and neck. 

Hydrated and much more alert, she turned back around and faced the room. With bullet-like speed, it hit her. She was in a cell. Locked up. No way out. Escape was impossible. Panic raced through her. Black spots appeared before her eyes.

Cursing the weakness, she pushed the fear into a little box, just as she’d been taught. It didn’t exist outside that compartment. This was nothing like when she was a kid, unable to fight back. She could and would defend herself against anything…anyone. She was bigger, stronger than she had been back then. She had proved that she could survive anything.

Breathing in and out slowly, she felt the fear wash away. Fury returned, and she welcomed it as an old friend. White-hot wrath had saved her life more than once. It would save her now.

“You seem…upset.”

The voice returned. And even though it was digitally altered to sound asexual and emotionless, she detected a hint of emotion. Amusement maybe? Damned if she’d let herself fall prey to this test. They wanted her to lose control. And once that happened, they’d try to extract information. Whoever it was didn’t know her well. She had been trained by the best. She would die before she gave anything up.

Every facial expression and movement were being studied and analyzed. Sabrina faked a bored yawn and returned to her cot. She lay on her side, facing the camera. If she turned her back, it would make her look weak, as if she were hiding. They needed to see she had no weaknesses.

Her eyes closed, she regulated her breathing. She had learned this relaxation technique when she first started at the Agency. By concentrating on an object or a pleasurable memory, non-threatening and soothing, she could lower her pulse and blood pressure. Many times she had willed herself to sleep this way. During those dark, horrible days after Declan’s death, when grief had almost destroyed her, this technique had saved her. Otherwise, she wasn’t sure she would have survived.

She slipped into a peaceful sleep, her last conscious thought of the time she and Declan had been lying on the beach in Costa Rica and he had leaned over and whispered he loved her. It had been the first time he had confessed his feelings. The memory soothed her, and a smile tilted her lips as she fell into a soft, easy slumber.

Declan backed away from the screen. He had been within seconds of going to her. When she’d turned from the sink and he’d seen the stark terror in her eyes, he’d almost walked to the door and into the cell. He had almost revealed everything.

He shoved a trembling hand through his hair and turned away from the woman who was now lying peacefully on the bed, a slight smile curving her full, lush mouth. He told himself that his reaction to her fear meant nothing. It was merely a byproduct of his own experience in captivity. He would feel empathy for anyone who felt trapped and hopeless. It was nothing more than that. Their past life together was dead and buried—he had nothing but hatred for this woman.

He went out the door and stalked up the path to the house. This location was perfect for his plans. In the middle of the woods, deep in a valley between two mountains with no other house within fifty miles. Plenty of privacy. In a way, the land reminded him of his boyhood in Scotland where some of his happiest moments were spent.

Built more than fifty years ago, the main house had needed work. In between regaining his health and his strength, he’d concentrated on making it livable. Though small, with only a kitchen/living room/bedroom combo and a bathroom, it was fifty times more spacious than his prison cell and a helluva lot cleaner.

He went through the front door just as a chime from the cell phone in his shirt pocket alerted him to a text message. Withdrawing the phone, he clicked on the message icon:
Any luck?

He had refused Jackson’s assistance in finding Sabrina. It had been impossible to say that he wasn’t looking for her. No one would have bought that lie. But that didn’t mean anyone needed to know what would happen once he found her location. Telling anyone his plans, even one of the few people he still trusted, was out of the question. His plans for Sabrina were between him and her, no one else. Jackson would most definitely not approve.

He gave a quick reply:
Not yet.

Another chime sounded.
How are you feeling? How’re the nightmares?

Declan shrugged off the irritation. It’d been a long time since he’d had someone care about his welfare, and while he knew Jackson’s concern was well meant, he didn’t like the questions. He had been questioned daily for months. He hadn’t answered his interrogators under severe torture, so he wasn’t about to let a polite request for information sway him.

The terse reply of
I’m good
was the best he could do.

Switching the phone off, he dropped it into a kitchen drawer and walked away. Contact with the outside world still felt strange. In his previous life, before everything had gone to shit, he’d been less of an introvert than he was now but still not much of a social animal. In the small amount of free time he’d been able to carve out, he had preferred quiet evenings at home. How many nights had he sat in front of a fire, sipping a good bourbon and reading? Probably sounded boring to most people, but it had been his way to decompress. 

While imprisoned, he’d had no rights and little privacy. Showers had been infrequent and medical care even less so. Food had been scarce and tasteless. The daily inquisitions and frequent beatings almost more than he could bear. However, it had been the lack of reading material that had almost driven him insane. From the time he could read, he had devoured books like an alcoholic devours booze. Out of everything that had been done to him, it had been lack of words that had almost made him crazy. 

He stood in the middle of the room and waited for peace to settle over him. This was his new sanctuary. The one place where he could surround himself with everything he had missed. In one corner he had placed two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. In front of the shelves were boxes filled with some of his favorite classics—their number only a fraction of his once extensive library. But it was a beginning.

He didn’t wonder what Sabrina had done with his belongings. Made sense that she would have sold everything. His book collection alone would have brought a small fortune, which she would have pocketed, along with the money she made from her betrayal. It was just one more reason to hate her.