Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
Maddy’s heart pounded in terror as she bumped around in the trunk while the vehicle raced along, she assumed heading for Willow’s cottage. She still had no idea who had taken her, or why. All this for a passkey that happened to be on her thumb drive?
She was terrified she would die once she handed it over.
They drove for at least ten minutes, seemed to climb uphill for most of it before the car slowed and made one final turn. It continued for only another few seconds, then turned and stopped. The engine cut.
Maddy sucked in a shaky breath, drawing her knees up tight for maximum leverage as she prepared to fight for her life.
The trunk lock popped. The moment she felt the swish of cool air rush in she twisted and drove her feet up hard. Her soles connected, a low oof telling her she’d hit her target. She threw her legs over the edge of the trunk, wrenched her torso upright, ready to run for it.
A hard blow across the side of the head knocked her back.
Disoriented and struggling to breathe through the pain, she barely resisted when the woman seized her bound wrists and hauled her backward. Maddy cried out, scrambled to keep up, forced to stay close to relieve the painful pressure on her shoulder joints. She fell.
“Get up,” the woman snarled, jerking her to her feet.
Maddy swayed a second, stumbled as she was dragged sideways. Her foot hit something hollow that sounded like wood. She fell hard, unable to throw out her hands to break her fall. Pain shot through her hip.
“I said, get up,” the voice snapped, yanking harder on her wrists.
Maddy struggled to her knees, then her feet, tottering after her. She heard a familiar series of soft beeps. A door opened. She was dragged inside. The smell was familiar.
She had only a second to register that before the hood was ripped off. She flinched at the sudden brightness. Blinked in confusion at the woman standing in front of her.
“Lindsay,” she blurted in confusion.
Lindsay’s mouth tightened, blue eyes cold as ice as they drilled into hers. “Go to the desk?”
She was numb with shock. Couldn’t think straight. How did Lindsay know about Syria or the passkey? “What do you want with—”
Lindsay’s hand flashed out, the back of it striking the side of Maddy’s face hard enough to snap her head around. The blow was like fire against her skin, filling her eyes with tears and snapping her out of her shock. “Where the fuck is it, Maddy?”
When she didn’t answer quick enough, Lindsay’s other hand flashed up, something glinting in her grip. There was a soft snick, then a long, sharp blade shot out of the handle. “You better start talking before I lose my patience and start cutting. Where. Is. It.”
“In the kitchen,” Maddy blurted, her muscles starting to quiver. She didn’t understand any of this.
Lindsay seized her arm and whipped her around to face the back of the house, giving her a push. “Move.”
Maddy moved on rubbery legs down the hall to the kitchen where Lachlan and Grey had placed her desk for her. “I n-need my hands to—”
“I’ll cut you loose to get it. But you make one wrong move, I’ll cut you instead.”
Maddy held absolutely still, cringed as the icy blade touched her wrists. One slice, a hard tug, and her hands fell apart.
Lindsay shoved her toward the desk. “Get it.”
Maddy grasped the sides of the chair pushed into the desk to move it out of the way. Made a snap decision and spun fast, swinging it at Lindsay with all her might.
Lindsay blocked it with a forearm before it could hit her head, but the impact was hard enough to make her hiss in a breath and drop the knife.
Maddy shoved the chair at her to throw her off balance and veered for the front door as an enraged scream came from behind her. A second later she was knocked to the floor, her chest and the side of her face taking the brunt of the impact.
Lindsay shoved an arm under her and coiled it around Maddy’s throat, squeezing. “You think you can beat me, bitch?”
Maddy bucked and writhed, thrashing to get free as her air cut off. Panic streaked through her, black dots appearing before her eyes.
The pressure around her throat eased just enough for her to suck in a ragged gasp. But the arm didn’t move from her neck.
Lindsay seized her by the hair again, dragging her upward. “Get that fucking key,” she snarled, ramming a knee into her lower back.
Sickening pain stole her breath. Maddy staggered, would have fallen if the woman’s grip on her hadn’t been so tight. Lindsay shoved her back toward the desk.
Nauseated, unable to think, Maddy fumbled under the desktop to find the thumb drive she’d secured there with tape. Managed to rip it free.
Lindsay snatched it from her and shoved it in her pocket, still clenching Maddy’s hair in her fist. “This better be the right one. Now move.”
She shoved Maddy back toward the hallway. Maddy stumbled, was about to take off in a desperate sprint, but Lindsay caught her again, the point of the blade pricking her ribs.
Maddy froze.
The tip slid through her sweater, bit into her skin hard enough to send a trickle of blood down her side. “I gave it to you,” Maddy rushed out. “Now let me go.”
Lindsay gave a low, evil laugh that made her skin prickle. “Oh, no, sweetheart. I have more plans for you. But first, we’re gonna take a little trip.”
The DEFCON One level barking that erupted inside the house alerted Mae that something was going on out front.
She thrust her gardening fork into the soil of the perennial bed where she was dividing hostas. “These dogs are going to drive me to drink,” she muttered and grabbed her cane to cross the patio to the doors that led into her kitchen.
Inside, the noise was even louder. “Quiet!”
They barked even louder.
“Hey! I said quiet!” she shouted, storming through the kitchen toward the front door where her lunatic pets were going ballistic. Well, as fast as a clumsy old woman with a cane could storm.
The dogs paid absolutely no attention to her whatsoever, barking like possessed demons at whatever or whoever was outside. Could be anything. Some poor soul daring to walk past the gate. The mail carrier the dogs saw five times a week. A damned leaf blowing across the yard.
“What are you three barking at now?” she demanded, bending to scoop them up before straightening to look through the window in the top of the door.
Her gaze landed on that same black car parked next to Maddy’s car in Willow’s driveway. Its trunk was open.
Mae gasped, heart seizing when she saw a woman forcing Maddy, with hands bound behind her, toward the open trunk.
She whipped her door open just as the woman shoved Maddy into the trunk and slammed the lid shut.
“Oh my God.” She almost dropped the dogs in her haste to whirl around and race back for her phone on the kitchen counter, the high-pitched barking ringing in her ears. Her fingers were twice as clumsy as she dialed Rafe.
“Mae. What can—”
“The black car came back to Willow’s. I just watched a woman shove Maddy into the trunk with her hands tied behind her.”
“Which direction did they go?” Rafe asked, voice taut.
Mae rushed back to the door in time to see the car whip around the corner at the stop sign at the bottom of the street, tires squealing on the wet pavement. “Looks like they’re heading away from town. Hurry, Rafe. You have to get them.”