Page 13 of Fear for Her Life

So thirsty, Amy’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, but asking him for anything would be a mistake. The argument the men had over her the previous night had almost come to blows. She’d seen different sides to all of them during the horrific time she’d spent with them, never knowing if the next second would be her last. Her stomach lurched at the memory. She needed to scream, cry, and push the awful memory out of her mind, but it came back in a rush of torment. She closed her eyes as the rerun replayed again. The moment she’d stepped out of the shower, Romero had grabbed her arm and pulled her against him. Roaring like a bull, Margos had pressed his pistol into Romero’s temple. Callahan had dragged her away and thrown her to the floor, insisting a woman was a waste of time to argue over. His suggestion was that they all murder her and at least have a thrill out of what was becoming a boring journey, and he’d rather be back in prison with three squares a day. The way they’d looked at her, all of them considering the best way to kill her, had chilled her to the bone. Their demeanor had changed completely, their eyes becoming hard and expressions almost blank. The compromise had been worse. During the ordeal, she wished she could pass out, but they’d kept her awake. Dying would have been better.

Being under Margos’ complete control terrified her. It was like being a cow in a slaughterhouse queuing up waiting for the bolt in the head. She sat and waited as he sent a message, waited for a reply, and then checked the GPS coordinates. He glanced at her and then removed his ball cap to scratch his head.

“There are two teams of cops chasing us down.” Margos reached into his backpack for a bottle of water. “None are close, and splitting up will make it easier for me to find them.” He sipped water and then looked at her. “You look thirsty. Hard to drink with your hands tied together, huh? I figure the split lip wouldn’t help either.”

Amy didn’t want to meet his gaze and stared at the ground, but she nodded slightly. None of the men had held a conversation with her. She’d obeyed their orders and kept as passive as possible rather than risk them losing their temper with her.

“You don’t need permission to speak to me.” Margos held out the bottle of water and waved it under her nose as if it were a glass of fine wine. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a conversation with a female. There were the nurses in the infirmary, but they weren’t so nice.”

Keeping her eyes averted, Amy gathered what courage she had left. “Yes, I’m thirsty. It’s difficult to keep going without drinking water.”

“Then I’ll make you a deal. I figure if we’ve got drones out, so will the cops. If they see us walking through the forest with you on a tether, they’ll know who I am and come running.” Margos moved a little closer and she could smell the onions they had for dinner with the elk steaks she’d discovered in the freezer. “I’ll untie you, but if we come across someone and you start flapping your lips or screaming, I’ll shoot you and them without a second thought. You see, I’ve got nothing to lose. I was in prison on death row. They don’t execute many prisoners, so it means never to be released. So how many more years can they give me? When or if I go back to prison, I’m going to be there until I die.”

Cooperating was her only chance of survival. The alternative slipped across her mind. If they came across others in the forest and they recognized him as one of the escaped prisoners, he’d kill them without a second thought. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Slowly lifting her head Amy glanced at him and then looked away. Before leaving the prison, she’d hastily scanned the files of the men they were transporting. “Ice Pick” Mason Margos attacked women because they looked at him strange. To him, eyes were an affront. Her hands trembled. This man terrified her, and his arrogant face would probably be the last thing she saw before she died. “Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“Simple, just act as if we’re a couple hiking through the forest on a nice sunny day.” Margos’ gaze ran up and down her and he gave his head a little shake as if pulling himself out of a fantasy. “If we meet anyone, you let me do the talking. With luck, before it gets dark we’ll find another cabin. I’m told there are many in this area.” He sniggered. “Maybe I’ll let you take another shower, but this time I’m going to watch or I might even join you.” He leaned forward and untied her wrists. “Have a drink. We’ll stop again later but right now we need to keep going.”

Horrified by what was to come, Amy’s hands shook so bad she could hardly get the water to her parched mouth. The fluid burned the cut on her lip, but she drank it down so fast it spilled out of the corner of her mouth and ran down her shirt. Afraid to empty the bottle, she lowered it from her lips and handed it to him, keeping her lashes low. When he stood up and hoisted his backpack over one shoulder, he gave her a push in the back as she stood. Amy stumbled forward, her feet tangled in the underbrush, and she fell flat on her face into the decaying leaf mold.

“Get up.” Margos kicked the sole of her boot. “You rest when I tell you to rest.”

Clamping her jaw shut, Amy pushed to her feet and brushed pine needles and dead leaves from her clothes. Nasty kids had bullied her at school as a child and she understood when someone was baiting her. He wanted a reaction and she refused to give him the satisfaction. Desperately afraid, she placed one foot in front of the other and followed the narrow animal track. Behind her, Margos’ eyes burned into her back. He made no more verbal threats, but he didn’t need to. Just having him behind her was like trying to escape a grizzly.

FOURTEEN

Pretending to play hide-and-seek in the back seat of Nanny Raya’s SUV, Jenna snuggled down with Tauri. Jo sat in the front seat and Beth slid onto the back seat beside Jenna. She had removed her hat and her blonde hair spilled over her shoulders. In the front seat Jo had done the same. No one could possibly believe either of them were Jenna. They headed out along Main and Nanny Raya hit the gas the moment they made it onto the highway. Twenty minutes later, they were heading along the driveway to Jenna’s ranch. The gates whined open and Nanny Raya drove around the ranch house to the door to her private entrance. The back of the house was well treed, shielding the entrance from the road. They all piled out and went through the extension built exclusively for the nanny and into the main house.

When Tauri took off along the hallway and into his room to play with his toys, Jenna led the way into the kitchen. So far so good. They’d gotten home without any incidents, but they needed to stay alert and that meant posting lookouts overnight. She went about setting up the coffee machines and searching the fridge for something to eat. She smiled seeing the peach pie on the shelf. It seemed that Kane always had a good supply of pie.

“You have a beautiful home.” Beth Katz dropped a duffel onto the floor and, after placing a laptop onto the table, scanned the kitchen smiling. “I figured, from the stories that Styles told me, the kitchen would be spectacular. Kane enjoys cooking I hear.”

Taking down cups from the cabinet, Jenna nodded. “Yeah, he does all the cooking. I’m not sure if it’s by choice or that he can’t stand eating my food. I can make scrambled eggs and burned toast but honestly my career doesn’t really leave me too much time to experiment with recipes.”

“Well, I’m a great cook.” Jo searched the freezer. “Dave always has a well-stocked pantry, so one thing’s for sure, we won’t go hungry while they’re away.”

Jenna looked from one to the other. “Now we have the food organized, we need to work out who is going to stand guard overnight. We have perimeter alarms, so we should be safe enough, but people have gotten into the ranch before when we believed it was impenetrable.”

“I’ll take first watch.” Beth dropped into a chair. “I usually work on my laptop late into the night, so I won’t fall asleep on the job.”

“I’ll take the second watch.” Nanny Raya smiled. “I’ll sleep after dinner. The one thing about being an ex-FBI agent is that I can sleep anywhere and at any time.”

“I’ve never been able to do that.” Jo heated the pie in the microwave and then slid it onto the table. “Quantico seems a lifetime ago. What made you retire?”

“I wanted to live in a small country town where it was quiet. When the position of nanny came available for Jenna, I couldn’t resist it.” Nanny Raya chuckled and poured the coffee. “I hadn’t realized I would be working in Serial Killer Central.”

The sound of a chopper came from overhead. Heart thumping in her chest, Jenna ran along the passageway and into the family room. Along the way, she grabbed one of the semiautomatic rifles they’d taken from the office. She glanced over one shoulder as footsteps came behind her. Following closely, Jo and Beth flanked her. Nanny Raya ran into Tauri’s bedroom and shut the door.

“Don’t you have a net?” Beth stood to one side of the window scanning the sky.

Stomach clenching, Jenna moved out of the family room and toward the front door. “Yeah, and it’s activated.” She turned as Jo joined her, rifle in hand. “It will prevent them from landing, but it doesn’t stop bullets. If this is Souza, he knows we’re here and all our resources are in the forest. I just hope he doesn’t have people who can hack our system and bring down the net.”

“They don’t know about me being here, do they?” Beth’s lips curved into a smile. “Anything they can do I can do better and faster.”

Keeping her back to the wall, Jenna peered out of the window at the chopper circling high above. It was an indistinct helicopter and she couldn’t make out any numbers or distinguishing features. The one that had kidnapped Tauri had a blue flash on one side, but this one was plain gray. One of the doors was open and she could see the legs of a man sitting on the edge like a military sniper, with a rifle across his lap. “We have a shooter. Keep away from the windows.”

“I could probably take him out from here.” Beth gave her a small smile. “I’m being a little optimistic. I’m great on the rifle range but nothing like Styles. My expertise is in cybercrime, not as a sniper.”

“I know how to use a rifle. Carter makes sure I hit the range at least once a week, but I agree, hitting a moving target at that distance would be optimistic.” Jo’s face was etched with concern. “I figure shooting at them would only start a gunfight. It’s better if they believe that we’re not here.”

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