Had he followed her? Had someone else followed her? Had someone told him?
But who knew? Special Agent Collins, maybe Chief Deputy Rivera.
Her caller—she’d recognized the voice—once again hadn’t given her a chance to ask any questions. He’d disconnected, leaving Mia to decide what to do.
She’d debated getting Collins out of bed, but not seriously. Her caller would sniff out the FBI, and she’d lose this opportunity to find out who he was, what he wanted, what game he was playing. He’d helped her in the past. He’d put Ham Carhill in touch with her. Even if this guy was a nut, Mia wanted to believe he was, in his own mind, at least, on her side. She knew she was taking a risk, but didn’t see what other choice she had. She didn’t own a gun, didn’t even know how to use one.
Huddled now in the entryway in the back of her hotel, Mia waited. Within minutes, an SUV with New York plates pulled up to her.
Something’s wrong.
Mia took a step backward toward the door. She already knew she’d made a terrible mistake, but a man leaped out of the back seat and caught her around the waist, his hand close to her mouth but not over it. “Quiet. Not a peep. Do as I say or I guarantee Carhill and Brooker die. Got it?”
She nodded, even as he threw her into the SUV, shoving her onto the floor. Her face hit first, the carpet scratching her right cheek, smelling of mud and a man’s sweat.
The SUV sped up the street, putting more and more distance between her and all that she’d left behind.
The man straddled her prone body. She couldn’t get a good look at him now, and she’d only had a glimpse of him as he’d grabbed her. He had dark curly hair; he was familiar, somehow. He patted her down, taking her cell phone, her small handbag. She’d left her briefcase in her room. Her movie was still playing, the lights were still on. Would anyone on the staff notice and check on her?
Mia tried to adjust her position to take the pressure off her right elbow, which was under her, but the man in back with her pushed a foot into the small of her back. “Don’t move.”
“I can’t—I can’t breathe with your foot on me.”
“Too bad.”
She lifted her rib cage up as much as she could and tried not to tense up, aware it would only make breathing more difficult. But she had no confidence in her ability to resist her kidnappers. She wasn’t an operative, trained in self-defense or anything else. She did Pilates and yoga. She read books.
“Who are you?” she asked, trying to keep her tone curious, without fear or any sense of entitlement.
Without letting up on his foot, he leaned down close to her face, his breath hot and foul on her left cheek. “You fucked with the wrong people, Doc. These bastards don’t like corrupt White House advisers.”
“You’re not—”
His foot pressed firmly into her back, quashing her ability to speak. “Shut up.”
From the way the SUV was moving, Mia suspected they were on a highway. The Henry Hudson Parkway, probably. Who was driving? How many were there in the car? Where were they taking her?
Unable to breathe properly, she grunted, and the foot eased off her back slightly.
She didn’t ask any more questions. She thought of her mother, ironing in front of the television. And her father, off early each morning, uncomplaining, glad he had work, glad it was something he didn’t mind doing. Her parents, content with their lives.
She’d tried so hard to do the right thing, not wishing ill for others, trying never to lose sight of rules, standards, procedures, a process, ethics—she was a moral person. She wasn’t idealistic so much as determined to believe no one was ever faced with only bad choices. Always there was, at least, a right choice, if not an easy one. But Mia had no idea what her choices were now.
The man in the back seat with her removed his foot from her back and had her raise up her head slightly, then slipped a bandanna over her eyes. It smelled like stale sweat. He tied her wrists together behind her, using what felt like flexible plastic cuffs.
He chuckled. “Life is full of surprises, ain’t it, Doc?”
“Where are you taking me?”
“No questions.”
“But I—”
He smacked her, hard, on the side of her head, pain slicing clear through to her teeth. Her stomach lurched.
She could feel his breath hot in her ear. “Nobody told me how pretty you are.”
The movement of the car added to her nausea. Before she knew what was happening, she vomited.
When she tried to sit up, he hit her again, a slap on the left side of her jaw that sent hot needles of pain straight up her cheekbones and through her eyeballs.
“Up you go.” He pulled her up by her hair, turning her onto her back and sitting her up on the floor of the SUV. “I’ve got a little drink for you.”
“No…”