Chapter 28
Time warped in the van—rushing and dragging all at once, until she couldn’t figure out how long it’d been since she’d been kidnapped. After the initial burst out of the parking lot and a few hasty turns, the van settled into a speed that felt like local traffic.
At first, she tried to pay attention to the route they took—counting turns, marking the sway of the vehicle as it curved left, then right, and listening hard for anything that might anchor her to a place.
Train tracks. A horn. The rhythm of tires changing from asphalt to concrete or gravel.
But it was all too much—too many details piling on top of one another until none of them stuck.
Minutes stretched and slipped through her fingers.
Eventually, she stopped trying to track everything.
The effort only made her head pound harder.
When the van finally slowed and stopped, hands closed around her upper arms and yanked her upright.
She stumbled, disoriented, and her panic spiked.
She screamed—once, sharp and desperate—before a fist caught the side of her head.
Light exploded behind her eyes. She would’ve gone down if the grips on her arms didn’t tighten, keeping her on her feet just long enough to throw her over a shoulder.
The world tipped and bounced as they carried her.
Downward. Steps—too many to count—each one jarring her skull until her vision swam.
Then she was dumped unceremoniously onto concrete.
Pain shot through her already bruised hip and shoulder, knocking the breath from her lungs.
She lay there for a second, dizzy and spinning, forcing herself to stay awake.
Passing out could be dangerous, and she was afraid she’d never wake up again.
The air was cool and damp, carrying a musty smell.
Beyond her own breathing and their movements, there was nothing—no voices, no traffic, no TV hum, nothing to suggest anyone nearby who might hear her if she screamed again.
Her best guess was that she was in a basement—but whether it belonged to a house, an apartment building, or a business, there was no way to know.
She swallowed a wave of nausea. “Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?
The only response she received was a gruff command to shut up.
Footsteps moved away. Voices followed—low, indistinct murmurs she couldn’t understand.
She twisted her wrists, testing the restraints, but the plastic only chafed and burned, scraping skin raw without giving an inch.
When she stretched her legs, she hit something hard with her foot, realizing after a moment that it was a wall.
Shifting to sit up as best she could, she pressed her back against the hard surface, her breathing shallow as she waited—but for what?
The space in front of her filled again, close enough that she caught the smell of stale smoke mixed with a masculine scent. Without seeing him, she felt the attention narrow and sharpen. Then he leaned closer, close enough that his voice brushed her ear.
“You’re going to talk to your brother,” he said quietly. The statement startled her—what did Andy have to do with any of this?
The man continued. “You’re going to sound scared. You’re going to tell him to do what we say and not to call the police. And you are not going to ask questions. Understand?”
Her pulse hammered. Yup, she understood all of that—especially the scared part. She wouldn’t have to fake that at all.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“If you say anything else,” his hand closed around her upper arm, fingers digging in just enough to make his point, “this ends badly. For him and for you.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat.
The grip loosened. A phone began to ring nearby—not muffled, not distant. Loud. On speaker.
“Hello?”
Her mouth was as dry as sandpaper. She forced the words out anyway. “And—Andy?”
Her voice sounded wrong to her own ears—thin, stretched, like it had traveled too far to reach him. But it was hers.
Relief broke through the fear just enough to hurt.
“Tess?” Andy’s voice came through the phone, sharp with panic. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
Her chest seized. She clenched her hands behind her back, nails digging into her palms as she focused on the one thing she’d been told to do.
“Listen to me,” she said, the words tumbling out too fast, fear bleeding through despite her effort. “Do what they say. Don’t call the police.”
The hand on her arm tightened again, warning.
“What? Tess, what are you talking about? Who—”
“Andy—” Her voice broke on his name, guilt flaring hot and immediate. She couldn’t stop it. “Please.”
Something barked behind her—one sharp word she couldn’t make out, the scrape of a boot against concrete. The phone shifted in the man’s hand.
“Tess,” Andy said urgently. “Where are you? Tell me where you are.”
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Static crackled through the line—or maybe that was just her breath rushing too loud in her ears. The phone was pulled away from her before she could try again.
The call ended.
The silence afterward was brutal.
She sagged back against the wall, her heart racing and lungs burning as if she’d just run for her life instead of speaking a handful of sentences. Tears stung her eyes beneath the hood, but she blinked them back hard. Crying would only make this worse.
The deeper voice exhaled slowly.
“Good,” he said, satisfied. “That’ll keep him moving.”
Her stomach twisted.
Footsteps retreated. Somewhere nearby, a chair scraped across the floor, and someone sat as if this was business as usual.
Tess pressed her head back against the cold wall, shaking despite herself.
Andy knew now.
He knew she was alive. He knew she was in danger. And she had just told him—out loud, with her own voice—to do whatever these men demanded.
The guilt was a physical thing, heavy and crushing in her chest.
Andy, what did you do?
She didn’t need to hear anything else to understand. She was leverage. A deadline. A threat delivered in human form.
She flexed her fingers slowly behind her back, fighting the numbness, fighting the fear that wanted to pull her apart piece by piece.
She couldn’t warn him.
She couldn’t help him.
All she could do now was survive long enough for him—or someone—to make the right move.
Even if every word she spoke earned her nothing but pain and the echo of shut the fuck up in the dark.
It’d been a hell of a day, starting with an Amber Alert for a little girl that hijacked their morning.
The arrest of the nanny’s boyfriend and the flood of follow-up interviews and paperwork that came after had already started to blur.
Even the press briefing—once the girl was safely back in her parents’ arms—had faded into background noise.
Now that the chaos was over, he could focus on what would easily be the best part of his day.
Dinner. With Tess.
Thoughts of her kept drifting in whenever his attention wavered. Images of Tess relaxing on the beach house’s back porch, the ocean stretching out before her, and the quiet promise of an evening that didn’t ask anything of him except to show up.
He wrapped things up around five thirty, stood, and tossed a file with his finished paperwork onto Rafe’s desk. “My shit’s all done. Catch you tomorrow.”
Rafe checked his watch and then glanced up, his eyes narrowing. “You heading out already?”
“Yeah.”
His partner leaned back in his chair, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Huh. Look at that. Guess the eternal bachelor finally has somewhere better to be. Good for you.”
Brian didn’t bother answering. He flipped Rafe off on his way out, earning a laugh and an obscene gesture in return.
Outside, he rolled the windows halfway down, letting the fresh air scrub away the stale coffee and office smell that clung to him. A duffel bag sat in the back seat with a clean shirt, jeans, and sneakers, so he wouldn’t have to waste time swinging by his condo.
Time with Tess always felt short. Lately, there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to spend with her—and he wanted every one of them.
Daylight still ruled the sky as he drove. Traffic thinned as Elizabeth City fell behind him, the road stretching out in long, familiar lines.
At a red light, he grabbed his phone, pulled up his ongoing text chat with Tess, and tapped the keyboard.
On my way. Need anything besides pizza?
When the light turned green again, he still hadn’t received a reply.
He wasn’t worried. She was probably home already—tossing a load of laundry in or jumping into the shower, her phone left wherever she’d dropped it when she walked through the door. Tess wasn’t glued to it the way some people were, especially when she was trying to decompress after a shift.
He still had to stop at Basil’s in Whisper to grab the pizza he’d already called in anyway. He wouldn’t pull up to the beach house until around six thirty, so she had plenty of time to text him back if she needed him to pick up anything else.
By the time he hit the highway that led onto the Outer Banks, the knot that had lived at the base of his neck for most of the day had loosened a little. He could already picture Tess’s smile when she opened the door—like it’d been forever since she’d last seen him.
It was a stupid thought—too big for that early in their relationship—but it landed solid anyway.
A little while later, after picking up the pizza, he pulled into the driveway and parked beside Tess’s empty spot. That was odd. She knew he was coming over—if she’d needed to run out for some reason, she would’ve called or texted. Wouldn’t she?
He killed the engine, grabbed the thin box off the passenger seat, and took the steps two at a time before knocking on the back door. Footsteps pounded quickly across the floor inside—then the lock clicked, and the door flew open.
Andy stood there.