Page 111 of Captive Lies

I didn’t want to open my eyes. My lids felt like lead and the voice was like a bee buzzing in my ear. I tried to shift my position on the bed. My eyes popped open. The mattress creaked toomuch.

“Wake up,Blaire.”

“Valerie?” I finally recognized the voice and sat up. Grant’s sister was sitting on the edge of a twin-sized cot. Her eyes filled withrelief.

“Oh, thank God, you’re okay,” she cried and hugged me. I wasn’t sure if I had entered an alternate universe so I surveyed my surroundings, noting the tall crates and boxes and wide-open space. We were in a warehouse and there was a man off to one side holding a rifle. And then I recalled everything. Val kidnapped. Grant leaving the penthouse. Andy coming by and faking his misery when he was the mastermind who’d betrayed us all. Plus, the bastard tranq’dme.

“Just a bit groggy,” I replied, grimacing at the cottony feel of my mouth. “Did they hurt you,Val?”

“No.”

“Do you know where we are?” Iwhispered.

“Hey!” Our guard called. “No whispering or I’ll separate you twobitches.”

“Charming,” I muttered. “Where’sAndy?”

“He’s around somewhere,” Val said, her voice turning hard. “I can’t believe I fell for his boyishact.”

“We all did,” I said and lowered my voice again. “Do you know how manyguards—”

The guard growled and stalked toward us. He yanked Valerie off the bed as she gasped in outrage. I jumped off the bed, got between them, and rammed my fist into the man’s face. He let go of Val and was about to backhand me when footsteps camerunning.

“Rex!” Andy scowled at his man. Beside the senator’s fake aide, stood Suit-Guy from the gallery. He had a laptop under his arm. But my eyes momentarily locked on Rex. He lookedfamiliar.

“Good, you’re awake, Blaire. We can’t waste time,” Andy stated. He motioned for Suit-Guy to get situated at a desk that had several wires attached to computer equipment. “I believe you met Eric at the gallery?” I turned to Eric who gave me a mocksalute.

On another table were the paintings. They’d been cut from their frames and laid stacked on top of each other. Above the table was a swivel lamp and magnifying glass. Beside it was what I suspected was a spectrometer. “Do you need anything right now? Are youhungry?”

“All right,” I stood back and swept my arms out helplessly. “You all have to tell me what I’m supposed to find underneaththat.”

“Numbers, Blaire,” Andy said impatiently. “We tried to leave you out of it, but Kostin concealed the numbers very well, it’s hard to separate the pigments. You’ll have to go in there manually.” He scowled at me. “Don’t give me thatlook.”

He stalked over to Val, yanked her arm, twisted it behind her, and held her in front of him. “We don’t have time. Your damned tracker is causing us problems and it’s not like we can cut it out of you. I’ll hurt Valerie if I have to.” He jerked the arm behind Val higher, but Grant’s sister, although in pain, wasn’t giving Andy thesatisfaction.

Brave girl. Now if I could figure out how many people we were up against and plot ourescape.

“Release her and I’ll get started,” I said. “I need a scalpel, solvent, a bowl of water, and clean rags. Think you can get methose?”

“Do you really need the scalpel?” Andy asked, pushing Val off to the side. There was a hurt look on her face, but I couldn’t analyze what she was feeling at the moment, although, it would wreck me if Grant had used me the way Andy had used her. Hopefully, she wasn’t in too deep with himyet.

“Do you really want those numbers?” I countered. Ugh, I wanted to punch him in the face. To think I thought his boyishness was adorable. Now he made my skin crawl. That two-facedbastard.

He came back moments later with a box cutter. “This is all Ihave.”

“It’s not ideal, but it will do,” I returned coolly then settled in front of the desk and got towork.

Three hours later,my back and eyes were killing me. The solvent had also nauseated me. My fingers were tired from maneuvering the box cutter. I was miserable, but I had uncovered the two bank account numbers they needed. I had passed the paintings through the scanner and noted that each painting hid four accountnumbers.

I wasn’t sure what Suit-Guy, Eric, was doing with the account numbers, but he confirmed the money in them, and it sounded like they were distributing it to differentaccounts.

“You need to work faster,” Andy murmured close to my ear while his hands massaged myshoulders.

“Take your hands offme.”

His fingers disappeared and he plopped down on a chair beside me. “You know, Blaire, I really likedyou.”

“Lot of good it did me—you still sold me out,” I muttered as I scraped some paint off a section to reveal a2. A thought occurred to me. “Did you put the bomb under the car,Andy?”

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