Page 53 of Be Courageous

“Had it for a while now.” Her captor tried passing her car off as his.

Liar.She was dying to call him out, only she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. God knew how her tiny baby was responding to the drugs in her body.

What could Cullum’s arrival at the hunting lodge signify? Ruby racked her foggy brain. He didn’t strike her as a killer.

He transferred her ankles to the crook of one arm as he opened his car door. Through her lashes, she saw him toss her purse onto the floor mat before lowering her feet next to it. Wow, so she still had her purse. Dead women didn’t need purses.

Her captor grumbled as he slung her into the seat itself. “Be easier to put her in the trunk.”

“Are you nuts? She’d freeze to death. I told you, the boss wants her unharmed for now. Just look at her! And what’s with her wrist? Did you do that?”

“No. She threw herself out the window. She’s crazy, this one. And she needs more sedative than most.”

Cullum said nothing to the kidnapper’s warning. The door closed, leaving Ruby in the much warmer car by herself. Her head lolled forward, causing her hair to fall around her face, hiding her fluttering lashes from both men.

“I want my money.” The kidnapper’s Eastern European accent was distinct. “Your boss hasn’t paid me yet.”

“I don’t have anything to do with that, Yordan. Sorry. I’m–I’m sure he’ll transfer the sum soon.” Sounding afraid of her captor, Cullum rounded the car to the driver’s side.

Yordan. Ruby filed away the name she’d overheard.

The driver’s door opened and Collum got in quickly, his jerky movements communicating fear. The engine roared to life, and he executed a swift U-turn before pulling away. As they started downhill, Ruby’s upper body tipped toward the dashboard. Her face was going to hit it.

“Whoa there.” Cullum threw out an arm, catching her forward momentum in the nick of time. Whispering anxiously to himself, he slowed the car to a stop, then reached across her to draw the seat belt over her and snap it into place.

Her body still tipped forward.

With a grunt, he reached across her lap and hit a button that lowered the back of her seat until she was reclining.

“There.” Breathing heavily, Cullum put the car into Drive again and started forward.

Ruby slit her eyes, taking stock of her situation. Unless Cullum looked back at her, he wouldn’t notice her return to consciousness. They were wending their way down a slick, steep road. Given Cullum’s white-knuckled grip on the wheel and the feel of the tires slipping on ice, the going was treacherous.

The digital clock read 2:03 P.M. Both her wrists and her ankles were bound again. She knew from her previous returns to consciousness that it would take another hour before she could move. But her fear was fading. Cullum was a far less dangerous adversary than the man who’d kidnapped her. She could probably persuade him to remove the zip ties. Confidence thrummed in Ruby.

Then, at just the right time, she was going to make a run for it.

* * *

Tony regarded his bloodshot eyes in the bathroom mirror. Having prayed as sincerely as he could for Katz to change his ways, his desire for vengeance had surprisingly subsided. But perhaps that was because he’d punched his old punching bag until his knuckles bled. Now he just felt gutted.

His thoughts kept drifting back to the day he’d first met Ruby. He’d been slogging through traffic, headed back to the Beach after dropping off some equipment at the Naval Base in Norfolk. Even before the rusty Oldsmobile behind him tapped his bumper, he’d known the driver wasn’t paying attention. With his Italian temper at a simmer, he directed the young woman with a pointing finger into the breakdown lane, intending to scold her before getting her insurance information. One good look at the flame-haired beauty dressed in a mesh sweater and ripped jeans, and he could tell she didn’t have insurance. He told her he would settle for a date—which had ultimately taken every ounce of determination he had to actually get, as Ruby hadn’t wanted anything to do with a younger man.

But Tony kept showing up and, little by little, she’d become his best friend first, then his girlfriend, then his beautiful wife.

His nostalgic smile in the mirror vanished as he remembered she was gone. He tried to blink back the grief that welled in his eyes like a geyser, but then his chest convulsed. He sank onto the edge of the bathtub with his face in his hands and silently sobbed.

God, please keep her safe. Bring Ruby back to me, alive. I don’t want to live without her.

CHAPTER11

With her head lower than the windows and the dash, Ruby couldn’t tell where they were headed. The road had grown smoother and flatter, with traffic sounds suggesting a return to civilization. Cullum listened to classical music, of all things, on XM radio. The car he drove was a BMW, according to the logo on the steering wheel—older model because there wasn’t any kind of computerized display. He could be driving her to Timbuktu, for all she knew.

When a tall green sign came into view with the wordHarrisburgemblazoned on it, she must have gasped out loud because Cullum’s head whipped in her direction.

Ruby snapped her eyes shut, forcing her body to grow lax and praying he couldn’t see her heart thumping through the material of her buttoned coat. Hearing nothing from Cullum, she dared to crack her eyelids a moment later. He’d turned his attention back to the road. And there, filling the windshield, was the skyline of Harrisburg, backdropped by pinkening clouds as evening descended.

She had vanished from Philly well over twenty-four hours ago, closer to thirty hours. Corinna might have spilled the beans about Katz. But that was the only reason anyone would think to look for her in Harrisburg.

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