Chapter 6 Tessa
TESSA
Tessa forced herself to concentrate and to bite back the tears that threatened to spill. She took a soft breath and swallowed the lump in her throat.
"We're not sure how long you’ve been out," Jackie said, stepping back to give them space. "You were unconscious when they brought you in about twenty minutes ago. Based on when Tessa was taken and when I was taken, I'd estimate you've been missing for..." She glanced at Tessa.
"It's hard to tell," Tessa admitted. "I've lost track of time down here. But I think it's been at least a day since I was taken. Maybe longer."
Ryan's jaw tightened, and he pushed himself to a sitting position with visible effort, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. He swayed slightly, and Tessa reached out to steady him, but he moved away from her touch.
It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did, as he didn’t physically recoil from her, but he’d moved, and to Tessa it was the same.
"Tell me everything," Ryan said, looking at Jackie. "What do we know about this place? About our captors? About any way out?"
Jackie sat down on the cot across from Ryan and systematically laid out everything they knew. The basement location. The single exit. The giant who brought them food and water. The bathroom breaks.
"They're very careful," Jackie explained.
"When it's time for the bathroom, he takes us one at a time.
We get a hood put over our heads, and our hands are zip-tied behind our backs until we're actually in the bathroom.
Then the hood comes off, and our hands are freed so we can use the facilities.
When we're done, it's hood back on, hands secured again until we're back in here. "
Ryan nodded slowly, his analytical mind clearly working through the implications.
"They don't want you to see where you are or plot an escape route.
Standard hostage protocol." He frowned. "But that level of caution suggests they're either professionals or they've been well-trained by professionals. "
"I have a plan," Tessa blurted out, feeling a little hurt and guilty.
Ryan was keeping himself completely aloof from her, had gone into what she could only think of as "soldier mode.
" Her older brother used to do the same thing when he was in a high-stress situation—shut down all the emotions and become purely tactical.
She admitted to herself that this was her fault. She'd pushed Ryan away in the park. She'd basically told him she didn't trust him, that she thought he was like her ex-husband, someone who would break Maggie's heart.
That was a good thing, she told herself firmly. Ryan and her were very different and lived in different towns anyway. Her life was in Boston, his was in New York, when he wasn't deployed to some top-secret location on some classified mission she'd never be allowed to know about.
Tessa had Maggie to think of. She couldn't do that to her daughter. She couldn't risk Maggie getting attached to someone who might leave, who might disappoint her, who might make her feel abandoned.
Maggie already had one father who'd let her down.
Thinking about her ex-husband, Mark Green, still made Tessa's chest tight with anger and old hurt.
He'd left when Maggie was just two years old. He’d left them for a younger woman and a prestigious career opportunity at Oxford in London. He hadn't looked back.
Mark had gladly, yes, gladly signed away all his parental rights. He hadn't even batted an eye when Tessa had changed both her and Maggie's surnames to her family name of Ryder and had his name taken off Maggie's birth certificate entirely.
"It's better that way," Mark had said with that infuriatingly casual shrug. "At least then, when you travel internationally, you won't have to bother me for permission letters."
Bother him. That's what he'd called getting permission to travel with his two-year-old daughter. A bother.
Then he'd left, and they'd never heard from him again. Not a birthday card, not a Christmas present, not a single phone call to see how his daughter was doing.
Tessa never wanted Maggie to feel that kind of abandonment again. And Ryan didn't exactly have a good track record with relationships. His engagement to Wendy had been a disaster. Before that, there had been a string of short-term girlfriends, none of whom had lasted more than a few months.
Her subconscious whispered something. Something about how maybe she was making Ryan seem bad with relationships to protect herself from what she really felt about him.
That thought shocked her, and she immediately pushed it away. Nope. No way. She was being logical and practical and thinking about what was best for Maggie. That was all.
"Tessa!" Jackie's voice snapped her out of her spiraling thoughts. "Are you okay?"
"What?" Tessa blinked, glancing from Jackie to Ryan, who were both staring at her with concerned expressions.
"We're waiting to hear your plan," Ryan told her, giving her a tight smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I have to agree with Jackie that even I couldn't hit anyone with one of these cot beds. They're bolted to the floor."
Tessa frowned, then realized they'd been talking while she was lost in her thoughts. Jackie must have mentioned their earlier conversation about hitting the giant with a bed.
Suddenly, her plan sounded silly. Childish. Something that would never actually work.
"No, it's probably outrageous and wouldn't work," she said, giving Jackie a tight smile, before repeating, "You're right, it is outrageous and probably wouldn't work."
She walked over to the cot she'd woken up on when they'd first brought her here and sat down, drawing her knees up to her chest.
"No, I didn't mean it like that," Jackie said quickly, standing up. "And now that Ryan is here, and we have these—" she picked up the bottle of pills Tessa had left on her cot "—I think we actually have more of a chance of pulling it off."
"What's the plan?" Ryan asked again, his tone gentle but firm. When Tessa didn't answer, he looked at Jackie. "Tell me."
Jackie outlined the plan. Telling Ryan about the pepper, the drugged water, and the hope that the giant would choke and accept the water bottle before he realized something was wrong.
"That's actually not a bad plan," Ryan said, and Tessa heard genuine approval in his voice. "It's clever. We just need to refine it a bit and make sure we have a backup plan."
"Pepper in his eyes," Tessa blurted before she could stop herself.
"If they bring pepper," Ryan and Jackie said in unison, then glanced at each other with slight smiles.
"So we need a plan C," Ryan said, his tactical mind clearly engaged now. "Explain the bathroom routine to me again. Every detail."
Jackie went through it again, and Tessa found herself retreating into her own thoughts, letting them discuss strategy. It hurt too much to look at Ryan right now, to see the careful distance he was maintaining between them.
Eventually, they had a plan. Actually, they had Plans A, B, and C.
Plan A: Drug the food, Tessa would choke, and they would get the giant inside the room. Tessa would give him a bite of her food to taste, and he’d choke. They would offer the giant the drugged water, wait for him to pass out, and take his keys.
Plan B: If Plan A didn't work fast enough, use the bathroom routine.
When the giant took one of them to the bathroom, the other two would be ready to attack when he came back.
Tessa would throw pepper in his eyes, if they had it, or the remaining pills, while Jackie went for his knees.
His height made him vulnerable to a low attack.
Ryan would use his combat training to subdue the giant once he was disoriented.
Plan C: If both A and B failed, they would wait for the next meal delivery, and all three would attack at once, accepting that they'd probably get injured in the process but banking on the element of surprise and superior numbers to overwhelm him.
Jackie looked at Ryan with concern. "How were you kidnapped? They got both Tessa and me with chloroform, but you're trained to resist that sort of thing."
Ryan's expression darkened. "I was at my dad's house.
Misty had gone to Seabird Cottage, and I was about to close the door when someone called my name.
It was a female voice." He frowned, his hand coming up to rub the back of his head.
"I stepped out onto the porch and they put a cloth over my mouth.
I don't remember anything after that until I started to come around in a car. "
"After hearing a female voice?" Tessa asked, the pieces starting to fit together in her mind.
Ryan's frown deepened. "Yeah!"
"That’s how your father got knocked out," Tessa reminded him. "He heard a female voice calling for help, and then someone hit him over the head."
"In the car," Ryan continued slowly, clearly trying to piece together fragmented memories, "I started coming around.
My vision was blurry, and I couldn't really move, but I could still hear voices. One of them was a woman. The voice was distorted, and there was a terrible ringing in my ears, so I couldn’t hear her properly.
But I do remember that she said some... strange things to me. "
"Like?" Tessa asked, leaning forward.
Ryan's eyes met hers, and there was something dark and complicated in his gaze. "She said it was a pity I had chosen 'her' to be unfaithful with. That if I was going to cheat, I shouldn't have chosen her because the woman speaking was a lot prettier."
Tessa's eyebrows rose. "That's... weird. Who would you be cheating on?" Her eyes widened as the implication hit her.
"I have no idea," Ryan said, and there was a catch in his voice that made Tessa's chest ache. His eyes remained locked on hers. "I'm single and have been for quite a while now."