Chapter 5
Matt slowly regained consciousness. His body felt like he was floating in a sea of molasses, his head heavy. He could hear
his own voice shouting from a distance, but his jaw wasn’t moving. It was his mind, ordering himself to wake up, get up, that
something was wrong.
“Kara,” he moaned and tried to move. Pain shot through him, jolting him fully awake. “Kara!”
He groaned, every muscle sore and tight as if it hadn’t been used in days. His throat was parched, his mouth dry, his head
pounded like the worst hangover he’d ever had.
His training clawed to the surface, every cell screaming danger! danger! danger! giving him a burst of adrenaline.
“Kara!”
He forced himself to move, then cried out as bruises all over his body made themselves known with stark pain.
He tried to get up and stumbled, fell on his face. He needed to collect his bearings, figure things out.
Slow, Matt. You can’t help Kara if you panic.
First, feel around. The floor was cool against his skin. Smooth, concrete. He felt nothing but the ground. Then he listened. For voices, running water, the noises of a building.
Nothing except his own breathing and pounding heart.
Calm down, he ordered himself.
He took a moment, forcing himself to breathe easier. When his heart rate slowed enough, he focused on his surroundings. Faintly,
he heard a distant buzz. Electricity, he thought. But it sounded louder than it should, like a large generator.
Finally, he forced his crusted eyes open through heavy lids.
He saw nothing. The room was pitch-black.
He called out again. “Kara? Kara, are you awake?”
His voice bounced as if he were in a metal room. Not cavernous, but big enough that he hesitated walking without being able
to see where he was going.
He pushed himself into a sitting position, felt around and found a wall. Also concrete. He leaned against it, getting his
bearings and wishing for light.
Matt touched his body, realized he was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt—what he’d been wearing earlier after the gym. Unfortunately,
he didn’t have his gun on him.
“What happened?” he mumbled. “Think, Costa, think.”
His brain was fuzzy, his memories mixed up as he tried to put them in chronological order. The investigation . . . Reid was
arrested Friday morning when he attempted to grab Matt and Kara. Saturday Matt spent the morning and half the day with the
joint task force.
Then Saturday night . . . he and Kara put work aside and enjoyed a night alone. The team had returned to Quantico, and Ryder
convinced him a little R & R was in order. Matt remembered that . . . Reid was in jail, the investigation shifted to Flagler
County, they could let their guard down. All the teasing and anticipation during the week they were undercover had culminated
in maybe the best sex Matt had had in his life. Then . . .
What?
What happened Saturday night?
Sex . . . dinner . . . sex . . . sleep . . . morning sex . . . then they went to the resort gym to have a friendly racquetball
game. Matt won, but he had to earn it and was wiped out.
“Lucky you,” Kara had teased as they walked back to their beachside cottage. “You get to decide on whether we eat first . . .
or have sex.”
“Food,” he’d said, “I need energy.”
She’d laughed and kissed him. He’d never seen her so relaxed . . . so content. They were both workaholics, but Saturday night they’d promised each other twenty-four hours without talking about work or
the case. It had been bliss.
He’d ordered room service, and they enjoyed brunch on their patio. Their flight didn’t leave until ten that night so they
were discussing what they should do that afternoon—after eating, having sex, showering, and packing.
“Maybe we should check in with Detective Fuentes before we leave town,” Matt had said as he drank coffee.
“I win!” Kara had fist pumped into the air.
He’d moaned. He had completely forgotten the bet he’d made her Saturday night over dinner that she would be the first to bring
up work. They didn’t actually bet anything except bragging rights . . .
Then what happened? Think, Costa! What happened after was crucial to figuring out where he was, where Kara was.
Matt remembered they were eating brunch on the patio. Kara was drinking a mimosa and enjoying the late morning sun. She’d
said something . . . he didn’t remember what . . . and then she got up and stumbled.
“What’s wrong?” Matt had jumped up as Kara fell to the ground. His head felt thick and his vision began to fade.
“Poison. We need to throw up,” Kara had said, putting her finger down her throat.
But she couldn’t make herself puke, and was then lying prone. He’d tried to get to her, then felt a sting in his shoulder and . . .
Nothing. He remembered nothing else. His hand unconsciously went to his shoulder, still sore from whatever hit him. A small,
hard welt had risen from his skin.
The sting . . . he’d been tranquilized. Their food had been drugged, then they had been tranquilized.
Except Reid was in jail awaiting arraignment. If he had been released, Fuentes would have told Matt . . . wouldn’t she?
Matt didn’t know what to think at this point, other than he needed to find Kara.
“Kara!” he shouted.
He didn’t hear her, didn’t smell her, couldn’t even sense her presence.
Matt rose, his legs weak, but they held him up. In the dark, he couldn’t tell the time of day, how long he’d been here. Based
on his stiff, sore limbs, it had been hours since he’d moved.
Kara had felt the effects first, but she was smaller than he was. What had they been dosed with? And then the tranq—it had
impacted him like a brick—was Kara okay? Was she conscious?
Was she alive?
Slowly, using his hand against the wall to judge where he was going as he looked for Kara or an exit, he shuffled along, mindful
that her body could be anywhere.
He reached the corner almost immediately, maybe ten feet from where he’d woken up.
From the corner he paced off the next wall.
He stumbled over several items, unsure of what they were.
Maybe a chair, maybe garbage. He counted off the size of the room.
Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. No door, no shelves, just what felt like cinderblock walls with the occasional small obstacle.
At about thirty feet straight ahead he felt a metal door.
At first he thought it was a way out, but as he searched for a handle, he noted it was flimsy metal and there were ridges equally spaced apart .
. . a row of lockers? He walked along the row, counting.
Twenty of them, each about eighteen inches wide.
That made the room roughly thirty-foot square.
The lockers ended and he felt another door.
Solid metal, but with a glass window. Thick by the feel, no light on the other side—either it was blacked out, or the other
side of the door was just as dark as this room.
He tried the knob.
It wasn’t locked.
Think, he told himself.
He’d been unconscious for hours. He was in a large cement room with lockers. First, he had to make sure Kara wasn’t unconscious
somewhere in this room. He hadn’t heard her breathing, and fear that she was dead clawed at him.
He should also look for a weapon, check out each of the lockers.
As quickly as he dared, he finished mapping the perimeter of the room. There were some cabinets along one wall and he cut
his hand on a jagged piece of metal. He found nothing he could carry. Slowly, he crossed the middle of the room, unnerved,
listening for breathing, for any sign that he wasn’t alone.
He walked into something and winced as pain radiated across his chest. He had bruises on top of bruises. He felt around—a
table. He moved to the left and tripped. A chair. Dammit. Every direction he hit something else. He walked as slow as he could
and counted seven tables. Just when he thought he was near the other side, his ankle hit something low and hard, he stumbled,
and fell onto a damp cushion—a couch, he realized. A disgusting stench of mold wafted up. He coughed and rubbed his hands
on his sweats.
Kara wasn’t in this room. Maybe she was at the resort looking for him. Maybe she had been left behind, unconscious, and he
was brought . . . here.
Matt found his way back to the lockers and opened each one.
Empty. Empty. Empty. No loose brackets or shelves or rods to extract and use as a weapon.
By the time he reached the door again, he had some strength back, but he felt drained and his head throbbed. He had a sense
he was in a warehouse or factory, a building with solid walls. It felt abandoned, the humid air and smell of mildew and rot
suggested it may have been damaged in a storm, maybe in a hurricane. Wherever he was, he couldn’t hear the ocean or any traffic.
No voices, no movement of people. Desolate. Empty. Hollow. Just that faint hum of electricity and the foul, rotting stench
that filled his pores.
He needed to head toward the sound.
Someone had taken him. He couldn’t imagine that the Flagler Sheriff’s Department would have let Garrett Reid out of jail without
informing him first. Reid wasn’t even going to be arraigned until tomorrow.
Matt opened the door. The generator noise was now more distinct, though still too far away to gauge how big the building was.
It sounded like it was coming from below. Two, maybe three floors down.
No lights in the hall and though Matt’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, he saw nothing. It was darker than a moonless night.
Hand on the wall, he moved slowly, his shins still stinging from the low table he’d walked into.
He heard metal on metal at the far end of the hall, then a blood-curdling scream from the same direction.
“Kara!” he shouted.