Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Melody lay on the ground and moaned. She hurt. Everywhere. She’d been so confused when men had rushed toward their car after getting out of the van that almost crashed into them. But as soon as John screamed at her to run, she’d acted. She had her seat belt off and her car door open even as the men were hitting John. He hadn’t had a chance to fight back, and as she ran toward the large yard of a house down the street from theirs, she wondered what the hell was happening.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get far. The man who’d chased her was much faster than she was in the cute little heels she’d decided to wear that morning. She regretted that decision now more than ever. He tackled her right in her neighbor’s yard and she went down hard, with the weight of her pursuer on top of her.
She opened her mouth to scream, but the man anticipated that and slapped his meaty palm over her lips, muffling the sounds she made. Melody fought then, as if her life depended on getting away, but it was no use. Reinforcements had arrived and before she knew what was going on, a second man was there, helping the first to pick her up and carry her back toward the vehicles on the road.
She saw a second car had pulled up so close to their own car that the bumpers were touching. That’s where the second man had obviously come from. Melody couldn’t help it; a loud whimper escaped. John heard it and begged the men not to hurt her.
The next thing she knew, Melody was shoved into the van next to John. Things had happened so fast, she was still processing what was going on. But as soon as a piece of cloth was yanked over her face, terror hit hard and fast.
She’d caught John’s eye before she’d been rendered blind—and what she’d seen there was fury and a promise that he’d get them both out of this. Whatever this was.
One of the men in the back of the van had a firm grasp on her upper arm and was holding her so tightly, there was no way she could wrench herself out of his grip. So she decided to wait. See what happened next. At the first chance she got, Melody was going to escape. She knew better than most what happened if you were taken away from civilization…nothing good.
They drove for a short time before the van slowed. She braced herself to do something…rip the covering off her head, use her fingernails to gouge out the eyes of whoever she could reach, throw herself at the driver to make him wreck…something. Anything . They hadn’t secured her hands behind her back, but one of the goons still firmly gripped her biceps.
She heard the door slide open but the van didn’t stop. She felt the hand around her arm tighten. Then she was falling through the air after someone gave her a massive shove.
Melody had a split second to be astonished that the man had thrown her out of a moving vehicle before pain exploded in her body. She hit the pavement hard, rolling over and over.
Even through the immense pain and agony, Melody was aware that she didn’t hear any sounds of John also being thrown out of the van.
Lifting a hand, she wrenched the cover off her head in time to see the back end of the white van disappearing in the distance. It was too far away to get a license plate—and as she suspected, there was no sign of John also lying anywhere nearby after being thrown out of the van.
She sat on the ground for a moment, trying to understand what the hell just happened. Nothing made sense. The men hadn’t even touched her, not really. She hadn’t been bound, hadn’t been hurt too badly as she was being subdued.
Of course, now she was injured. Her left hip was throbbing where she’d landed on it. Her head too. She felt blood dripping down the back of her neck. Her left arm was screaming, and when Melody looked down, she saw it was bent in an awkward angle, obviously broken.
She was covered in road rash and her shoes were long gone…she probably lost them in the struggle in her neighbor’s yard. How in the world could they have been kidnapped in the middle of the day, and not one person saw it happen? But then again, maybe someone did see it happen and they’d called the police. The cops could be looking for them even now, fanning out across the town of Washington, Pennsylvania, in search of her and John.
Looking around, Melody realized she had no idea where she was. She was lying half on and half off the road in the tall grass. There was a fence behind her and large fields on either side of the road, with some kind of crop growing.
Frowning, she looked back the way they came. There were no cars. No sounds. Her kidnappers had pushed her out of the van in the middle of nowhere. She’d lived in the area a long time, but she didn’t recognize the area she was in now. Tears threatened, but Melody forced them back. She couldn’t cry. Not now. Not when the men who’d taken her still had John. He was a badass former Navy SEAL, yes, but she couldn’t get the vision of his already bruised face out of her mind. He was bleeding, and she’d seen cuffs on his wrists before that cover had been put over her head.
It struck Melody then that they’d probably taken her to keep John compliant. And it had worked.
She needed to get help.
She tried to stand, and found it was almost impossible. Her hip joint felt as if it was out of its socket, and her arm hurt so bad, her vision went black when it moved as she struggled to her feet. She stood in the road weaving, praying she wouldn’t fall and hurt herself even more than she already was.
Determination filled her. She was the only link to John. She tried to remember every detail of what had just happened. What the van looked like, how the men sounded—even though they hadn’t spoken very much—even smells at this point. Any information the police might be able to use.
Melody began to slowly limp down the road, praying she’d see a house before the pain became too much and she passed out. She’d only hobbled about five steps or so before she saw something in the road up ahead that definitely looked out of place.
It was a brick that had been painted yellow. As she got closer, Melody saw there was a piece of paper wrapped around it, secured with a rubber band. It had to have been thrown out of the van along with her. Why else would it be here?
She wasn’t John “Tex” Keegan’s wife for nothing, Melody knew better than to touch either the brick or the note with her bare hands. She prayed their kidnappers had left fingerprints or some kind of touch DNA on either the paper or the brick.
Desperately wanting to know what the hell was written on that paper, Melody kept walking. She’d send the police back to pick it up. Now that she was upright, she had a feeling if she stopped, she might not be able to get started again. Every step was excruciatingly painful. But she’d suffer any amount of discomfort if it meant getting help for John.
The thought of what he might be going through was almost enough to break her, but Melody took a deep breath and kept walking, looking behind her every now and then, terrified her kidnappers would decide they’d made a mistake in letting her go and come back to find her.
She had no idea how long she’d been walking, as time had no meaning through the agony coursing through her body, when she saw a car in the distance coming toward her.
Stopping, Melody moved to the middle of the road. The car would either have to run her over or stop. And if it was her kidnappers coming back, they’d surely choose the former. But she was at the end of her rope. She couldn’t take one more step.
To her immense relief, the car slowed as it got close. A woman was driving, and Melody could see two young children in car seats in the back.
The woman stopped and stared at Melody in shock.
Melody didn’t move. She didn’t want to seem like a threat, especially to a mom with kids. The sight of the children made Melody think of her own. She was suddenly so damn thankful that Hope hadn’t been with them. That she’d been spared this experience.
“Please,” she said, raising her voice in the hopes she could be heard through the closed windows of the car and over the engine. “I need help.” Melody even held her good arm out from her side, trying to show she was unarmed.
The woman rolled the driver’s-side window down an inch or two. “I’m calling the police!” she yelled.
Melody nodded, relief making her dizzy. Or maybe that was the pain of being shoved out of a moving vehicle. She didn’t dare move out of the middle of the road though, petrified the woman would simply drive away and not do as she’d promised…namely call the police.
She watched as the woman brought a phone up to her ear and her lips moved. Melody held eye contact with her savior, not wanting to risk looking away for fear she was an illusion. A mirage. Made up in Melody’s pain-filled mind.
Eventually, the woman cautiously opened the car door and stood by it with the phone up to her ear. “Nine-one-one wants to know what’s wrong,” she called out.
Melody wanted to collapse. Wanted to give in to the unconsciousness hovering at the edges of her mind. But she forced herself to stay upright. Aware. John needed her. “My husband and I were kidnapped. They pushed me out of the van, but they still have him. Please, he needs help!”
“What’s your name?” The woman’s voice was gentler now. She even took a step away from the car.
“Melody Keegan. My husband’s name is John. We live in Washington. It was a white van. There were three men—no…that’s how many were in the van. I think there were five or six total. Shoot. I’m not one hundred percent sure how many there were.”
The woman walked closer to Melody. She was still talking to the 9-1-1 operator, relaying the information Melody had given her, then adding, “She looks hurt bad. She’s bleeding and her arm doesn’t look right. Please hurry.”
“Thank you,” Melody whispered, more than grateful that this woman had gone out of her way to help. It occurred to her that she could’ve easily swerved around her in the road. She wasn’t actually in any condition to force the woman to stop.
“Do you want to sit?” the woman asked, gesturing toward the side of the road.
Melody shook her head. She wanted a lot of things right that moment, but sitting wasn’t one of them. She wanted John. For the first time, dread filled her. She had no idea how to live without him. He’d been her rock for so long. He had to be all right. He had to.
Her husband was the strongest man she knew. He’d be fine. Soon, this would be nothing but a bad memory. He’d be back in his basement scouring the internet and dark web for intel and helping to find those who needed him the most.
The irony that John was the one who needed to be found right now wasn’t lost on her. He didn’t have a tracker; that she knew. Besides, she had no idea how to work the software on his computers, even if he was wearing one. She could surf the web, shop, do email, social media, and chat rooms, but that was about it.
It hit Melody then that if the police couldn’t track her husband down in a few hours, she’d need to call in reinforcements. John had a huge circle of friends and acquaintances. People he’d helped in the past. People who she hoped wouldn’t hesitate to return the favor. She had no idea how to get a hold of the people John knew, but she knew who to start with.
Wolf. Matthew Steel. One of his oldest and dearest friends. Matthew and his SEAL teammates, all retired now, would know what to do.
By the time Melody heard sirens in the distance, the pain coursing through her veins had overpowered almost everything else.
One more minute. That’s all you need to endure. Stay conscious one more minute. Just long enough to tell the police about the brick. To warn them about DNA and fingerprints. Then you can close your eyes and sleep.
No, you can’t sleep. You need to tell them what happened.
Two more minutes then. That’s all. You can do this. You have to stay awake, Hope will be worried when she gets home and you aren’t there. You have to suck it up, Mel. Call Amy, ask her to come look after Hope if you don’t get home in time. Oh! The groceries! They’ll go bad if they aren’t put away. She can do that too…
Melody was aware her thoughts were ricocheting from one topic to another. But it was the only way she could keep her mind off the agony that was getting worse every second. As the adrenaline waned from her system, the pain was almost overwhelming.
She had to get the cops to contact her best friend. Amy Smith. Ames. She’d take care of Hope. The groceries. Her car. Call Akilah and let her know what was going on. All of it.
Remaining on her feet as the ambulance and police car pulled up was torture. She waited for them to come to her. As soon as they got close, she began to speak. Tell them everything swirling around in her brain. Because she had a feeling as soon as the medics began to work on her, the pain would be too much and she wouldn’t be able to stay conscious. Even if she did, the painkillers she hoped like hell they’d give her would put her in a fog.
She had one chance to tell them as much info as possible so they could find John. She wasn’t going to let him down. No way in hell.