“I don’t think so. I hope not.” She was completely blowing it. “I believe everything will be fine. Look, I have to hang up. I have somewhere I have to go. I love you, Mom.” She hung up.
A complete disaster, she thought, as she got to her feet. She’d probably sent her mother into a panic. She should have written her a letter as she had Olivia. So much for leaving a memory behind for the people you love.
Maybe a drop of rainwater in a great ocean wasn’t so bad.
But it would have been for her, and it might have been for her mother and Olivia.
And now it was time to forget about memories and good-byes and concentrate on life. That call had probably been foolishness anyway. She had no intention of letting Dyle kill either her or Waldridge. Charles Waldridge was too important to the world and, dammit, she was important to her own world, too.
A moment later, she was locking up the studio and facing the deserted parking lot. All the tenants had left for the day, and there was only silence and shadows.
Last night she had told herself that she would face the fear and shadows today, and here they were.
She felt her heart beating hard in her throat. Logically, she knew this was the quickest way to find Waldridge, but she knew the odds weren’t wonderful and could always get worse. What if Dyle turned out to be some nut job who now thought the most effective means of persuasion would be to present Charles with her head? The possibility certainly existed.
You could die today.
But she wasn’t going to die. She was going to find Charles Waldridge, the man who had given her so much. She was going to pay back just a little of that debt today. She started across the parking lot.
Her gaze searched the shadows as she approached her car. Come on, you assholes. Come and get me.
She opened her car door. She looked around the parking lot again. It obviously wasn’t happening. Not here, not now.
She was depressed and relieved at the same time.
Damn.
She started the car and drove out of the parking lot.
As she made her way through the city streets, she was tense, her eyes searching. There was no sign of any of the vehicles that had been following her in the past few days. No black panel van. No white utility truck.
She felt a chill.
Maybe it was because they didn’t need her anymore.
The thought brought immediate panic.
Maybe they had already gotten what they wanted from Waldridge … Or for a much worse reason. She didn’t even want to consider that possibility.
She turned down Fourteenth Street to cut over toward her condo. Orange construction cones narrowed the one-way street to one lane, not an unusual occurrence in downtown San Diego. Just before she reached F Street, a large truck backed up from an alley, blocking her way.
Damn.
She checked her rearview. It was a one-way street, but maybe she could still—
Another truck blocked the street immediately behind her.
“What in the…”
Crash.
Her driver and passenger windows smashed open simultaneously, and before she could register the twin events, gloved hands reached in and gripped the inside door handles with well-rehearsed precision. They threw open the doors, and two masked, black-clad men jumped inside.
She tried to scream, but there was something over her mouth. She instinctively fought, her fists striking out hard as one of the men was suddenly on top of her. Her hand clawed at his mask, and she tore it off. White hair, gray eyes … “Bad move, Kendra,” he murmured. “I’ve been eager to meet you, too. But now isn’t the time. That’s for later.” Then the cover over her mouth was drawn higher, over her nose, then her eyes, then her entire head. A hood, she realized.
She struggled to breathe. She kicked and clawed at the darkness until something pricked at her right forearm.
Suddenly, she couldn’t move. It was as if the darkness had become solid, totally encasing her, burying her.
For a moment, she felt sheer panic as she struggled against her tomb.
Then she felt nothing at all.
CHAPTER
16
London, England
WHAT THE HELL?
Lynch glanced down at the caller ID on his phone, and he was not liking what he saw.
Dr. Dianne Michaels.
Any way he looked at it, this was not good.
“Hello, Dianne. This is a surprise. I don’t even recall your having my number. What’s the—”
“I didn’t.” Kendra’s mother’s voice was angry, strained, and brimming with tension. “I’ve spent the last two hours talking to those idiots at the FBI and trying to find someone there who had it. They acted as if I were some kind of threat to you. I finally reached Griffin and made him give it to me.”
“Made? Griffin seldom permits himself to be made to do anything. You must have been—”