“All quiet here?” Matt asked, holding Killer on a tight leash.
“Quiet as can be,” Brighton replied. “The ladies all went to sleep. I’m assuming they wanted their beauty rest so they could be up bright and early tomorrow.”
“I’ll take over on watch here,” Nathan told Joe. “You can spell me around three or four, all right?”
“I think we have enough security around here that you guys don’t need to stay up,” Walker said. “I have to admit that I was shaken by those tongues showing up. Obviously, someone really hates me or wants to see me go down. But yeah, you could all get some sleep. Me, I’m heading up to be with my wife.”
Jackson nodded at Matt; he was free to go to bed. He’d check on Meg first.
Upstairs, he found that Meg had locked her bedroom door. Smart move, he thought. She had to be safe in there.
But Killer, trotting beside him, wasn’t satisfied.
The dog scratched at Meg’s door and whined, then started jumping on Matt’s legs, insistent that he do something, that he get the door open.
“Everything okay?” the Capitol police cop asked from the end of the hall. “The dog’s going to wake everyone.”
“I just want to check on Agent Murray. If the dog is upset, there’s even more reason for me to do so.”
“Knock on the door. I know she’s inside there. I watched her go in and haven’t seen her leave.”
He knocked as softly as he could, and then harder. There was no response.
Matt moved down the hall to the door to Maddie’s room. He tried the door. It, too, was locked.
By then, others began to come out of their rooms. Jackson and Angela, Kendra and Ian Walker, and then Nathan Oliver.
“I need this door opened,” Matt explained. He had to make sure both of them were fine. He didn’t give a damn about anyone’s opinion or the consequences. He kicked the door to Maddie’s room open and threw on the light.
Maddie Hubbard was in bed. She was sleeping deeply; she didn’t wake up, even with the sound of her door being kicked in or the bright light suddenly streaming into her room.
Was the woman dead?
Matt rushed to her side and felt for a pulse; she was alive. He shook her arm, lightly at first. “Mrs. Hubbard. Maddie.” She still didn’t wake. He shook harder. Her eyes slowly opened, and she stared at him with confusion.
“You’re all right,” he said briefly.
He left her to the others and walked through the adjoining door into Meg’s room. Killer was already there, barking insanely.
Matt turned on the light. At first, he thought she was in the bed. Then he discovered that it was just pillows and wadded-up blankets.
He looked at her window. It was wide-open. The evening breeze was gusting in.
And Meg was gone.
*
Meg woke slowly, fighting what seemed like swarms of spiderwebs in her mind.
Then she became aware of the cold, hard ground beneath her and the dank smell of earth. She was cold—naked, shaking, shivering. Next, she became aware of the wet feel of her hair, clumped around her body and her face. She tried to move, but it was difficult; her limbs felt as numb as her mind. She had to make an effort to get her eyelids to open, and when they did, she wasn’t sure if they were truly open or not. She was surrounded by darkness. She tried to rise and realized she had to do it slowly. She wanted to leap to a defensive posture immediately, but it wasn’t that easy.
She wasn’t dead; she hadn’t had her throat slit. She was in a dark place, lying on a dirt floor that felt like earth. She was cold because she was naked, and she couldn’t have been there too long because her hair was still really wet. She remembered that she’d been taken in the shower.
She had nothing—no gun, no weapon, nothing—including clothes. She was somewhere...near the MacAndrew farmhouse. She had to be.
She managed to come to her knees, and then to stand carefully. She held very still, listening, but she could hear nothing at all. The night was completely silent.
Where the hell was she?
She reached in front of her, trying to discover what she could feel. Just more dirt.
She inched forward. Her mind raced in several directions. It was impossible! Impossible that someone had kidnapped her from the MacAndrew house. Her door had been open to the next room. There’d been a policeman in the hall. There was security all around the house.
Impossible! Yet here she was.
But she wasn’t dead yet!
She gritted her teeth, fighting cold and fear. She reminded herself that she’d been trained, that she was in excellent shape.
And that Matt would return to the house...and he would discover she wasn’t there, and he’d start a search that would continue until he found her. She would be found.
Unless the killer returned first.
She stood still, halting her blind groping for a moment. She remembered when they’d been at the Virginia Monument, when she’d sat on the step and closed her eyes and thought of Lara. She’d touched Lara’s mind somehow...and she had seen this place. Dank and dark, filled with the rich scent of earth.