“Childers,” Bryan cut in, his voice very soft but quite clear. “I think you should reconsider the rest of that sentence. You see, Jason and I aren’t debating about whether to have you arrested for arranging a kidnapping.”
Standing behind his seated employer, his arms crossed over his chest, his face totally impassive, Jason Colby shook his head.
“You aren’t?”
“No. We’ve actually been discussing whether we should let you live.”
Childers jerked as if he’d been shocked by an electric current. “You can’t just burst into my apartment and threaten my life!” he shouted, waving a trembling hand at the door that still hung precariously from its broken hinges.
“You’re absolutely right,” Bryan agreed pleasantly. “Why don’t you call the police?”
There was a lengthy silence in the room. No one moved.
Childers’s eyes jumped from the telephone to the two deceptively relaxed-looking men waiting for him to make a move. Standing just inside the open doorway, almost quivering with the suppressed urge to speak, stood a young woman with brown hair and furious hazel eyes. A woman who looked so much like Chloe Pennington that Childers had nearly fainted when he’d first seen her.
He swallowed hard. “I told you, already. I don’t know where your friends are.”
“Perhaps you should think a bit harder,” Bryan prodded.
From the doorway, the woman spoke impatiently. “He’s not going to help us. Just kill him, Colby.”
Childers could almost feel the blood drain from his face as Jason Colby looked fully prepared to follow the woman’s suggestion.
Though Bryan’s mouth twitched with what might have been a hint of a smile, he held up a hand without looking around at his companions. “Grace—you promised not to speak,” he reminded her, causing her to subside into resentful silence again. “And Jason follows my instructions alone. Now, Mr. Childers—perhaps you’d like to start over? Where are my friends?”
The narrow rock ledge above them provided little protection from the driving rain, but maybe it gave them some shelter from the lightning that ripped across the charcoal-colored sky above them. At least, Donovan hoped he hadn’t made another mistake by stuffing them into this hollow.
Holding Chloe in his arms, he had his back turned as much as possible to the outside, trying to shield her from the rain that blew in on them. His back was soaked, his hair dripping. Chloe wasn’t much drier, but at least he seemed to be taking the brunt of it.
As often as he had urged her not to give up during the past three days, he found himself teetering on the verge of doing so now. Maybe he’d been in worse situations—he couldn’t remember at the moment—but it was Chloe’s suffering that was ripping his heart out.
She’d tried so hard, but she had just about reached her limits. And he hadn’t been a hell of a lot of help to her—first letting her get kidnapped, then leading her into the forest, idiotically hurting his leg, bringing her into the sights of a crazy man’s shotgun, and now sitting with her in the middle of a damned lightning storm.
Bryan wouldn’t have to fire him when this was over, he decided. He was going to quit. He didn’t deserve to keep a position of responsibility and trust.
Maybe he could build himself a lean-to in another deserted forest somewhere.
The air crackled around him as a bolt of lightning sliced through the forest nearby. The crash of thunder competed with the sound of splitting wood and hammering rain. Donovan could smell the ozone in the air and feel the hairs standing up on his arms and the back of his neck. He could only hope again that the ledge would protect them.
The way his luck had been running, it would more likely fall on them, he thought glumly.
Cradled against his shoulder, Chloe moaned a little, then stirred, interrupting his private org
y of self-recrimination.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she said, her voice thick.
“Only for a few minutes. Go ahead and rest. There’s nothing else to do until this storm breaks.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “At least, I was thinking about it before I fell asleep.”
“Thinking about what?”
“When the storm is over. Even with your injured leg, you’ve been making better time than I have today, since this stupid fever keeps making me so dizzy. If you leave me here, maybe you can—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Though his sharp tone had been intended to stop any argument, she persisted anyway. “Think about it before you say no, Donovan. You said yourself we’re probably close to a road.”