"Have you had anything to eat?" Rhianna asked.
"Wasn't hungry." Jamie let his gaze move over Marek's tense face and understood how Conor could
love this woman so much.
"They wouldn't kill him until they have me, would they?" She looked at him, pleading with him to agree.
"I don't think so." Jamie threaded his fingers through hers then brought her hand to his thigh where he
held it lightly.
"But they'll hurt him," she whispered.
"Try not to think about it," he replied. His hand tensed around hers.
Rhianna drew in a long, unsteady breath, then exhaled tiredly. It had been nearly four hours since the
word went out that Conor had been taken. The rain had stopped just as they all pulled up at the station.
Now, everyone but Rhianna was busy trying to find Irish. She felt useless and helpless.
"I'm glad you're here," she said. "At least they didn't get you."
Jamie flinched and looked away. No, but they did have the others: Coni, Keane, Collins, and Sullivan.
"We're too fucking late!" Boucharde had yelled at them while they were still at the clinic. "The others
are missing, too!"
Cullen was out of his mind with worry for his friends. While Quinterras might wait to execute Coni,
he'd have no reason to hold off with Danny, Mick, and Tim-Pat. The other men might already be dead
for all he knew. The thought brought a raging fury to Jamie Cullen. "He wants me, too," he said. "He
won't be satisfied until he has all of us."
Rhianna leaned her head against his shoulder. "Don't say that."
Jamie put his free hand up to caress her cheek. "We'll get him back for you, Sweeting. I promise you
that."
****
Conor woke up to find his thoughts rambling and incoherent. He knew that was partially because of
the drug they had given him and partially because of the fear in his gut. For a while he concentrated only
on trying to breathe in through his nose. The air was hot and musty and had an under-smell of something
rancid and decaying. Thanks to the high humidity it was hard as hell to breathe anyway; the smells only
made trying to breathe the rank air worse. He tried to move and found that he was hanging from his
wrists with his feet barely touching the floor. He swayed to and fro for a moment and the motion made
him nauseated. His stomach churned and his head throbbed as though he'd tied on a really good drunk.
He was grateful when the swaying stopped and brought an end to the hard pull on his aching shoulder
sockets.
He might have slept, he thought later. He couldn't be sure. Time had ceased to have any meaning for
him lately. He tried to swallow, but there was no spittle in his dry mouth. A foul-tasting rag was jammed
between his teeth and held in place with a piece of duct tape. When he tried to swallow, a portion of the
rag tried to ease its way down his throat and he gagged.
He couldn't see; they'd blindfolded him again. He didn't know if it was day or night. He couldn't hear
anything, either, except for the buzzing of the mosquitoes that were making a meal off his face and bare
arms.
Two questions kept popping into his mind - Why? Who? Why was this happening to him? Someone
had gone to an awful lot of trouble over the last four or five months. Who hated him enough to so
thoroughly choreograph his abduction? Whoever it was, the person or persons were deadly serious
about what they were doing to him. And they were spending a helluva lot of money to ruin his life.
Another thought - unbidden and unwelcome - pricked at him. Suppose, just suppose, they weren't
going to come back for him this time. Suppose they were going to leave him here in this godawful place
to rot like whatever caused that rancid smell. Could that terrible odor mean they had brought some other
person here to die? Another cop, maybe? A cop they'd wanted out of the way?
He felt a sliver of icy cold go down his spine despite the suffocating heat in which he hung.
The sound of a door creaking open made him snuff in a loud breath through his nose. Dread set his
heart to racing as damp air moved over his half-naked body.
"Brought you some company, pig," the black man said.
He heard a sound like a pulley hoisting something aloft. There followed another shriek of metal then
the popping of wood as weight pulled against it.
"Now you boys don't go nowhere, okay?" came a voice Conor had never heard before. "Y'all keep
Nolan company, you hear?"
Had they brought in more than one man, then? Conor wondered. He strained to hear any sound as the
door closed again, but all he could make out was the gentle squeak of rope against wood.
Thinking was too much for him and he found himself slipping over the edge of consciousness again,
thankful that despite his predicament, he was not alone in his hell.
When he woke again, his arms were numb. The drag on his arm sockets had been hell, now he
couldn't even feel that pain. The weight of his body hanging from whatever he was strung up to, pulled on
his neck and he had a granddaddy of a headache.
And the smells were making him violently nauseated: the stench of his own body sweat; the sour odor
from whoever was in the room with him; and the musty smell of the urine he'd had no choice but to let run
down his hospital pajama-clad leg.
Something hit the wall outside his prison and he tensed. The door opened again and he could make out
the grunts and the shuffling sound of a struggle. There was a low curse, a meaty thud, a grunt of pain, then
a succession of muffled sounds that could have been nothing else but fists slammed viciously into bare
flesh.
"You wanna play, pig?" the black man shouted. "We'll play with you!"
Conor heard a loud expulsion of pained breath then complete silence. The pulley creaked again and
the wooden beam overhead made a cracking sound. He was sure another body was being lifted.
"This bastard must weigh close to 250 pounds!" the new man snarled.
_So there are at least four of us here_, Conor thought as silence once more descended on his prison.
He tried to grasp the meaning of it all. It did have meaning in the darker recesses of his fogged brain, but
he couldn't hold onto the fleeting knowledge. His thought processes were jumbled; nothing seemed to be
staying long enough for him to concentrate on it.
A snort of anger broke the silence and then the creaking of rope on wood as one of the other
prisoners struggled to get free.
_Don't even try, fellow_, Conor found himself silently advising the other man.
If he listened very hard, he could make out two other distinct patterns of breathing in the room. He
thought the last man must be unconscious. He wondered if the others could hear him and he made a low,
fierce grunt that was echoed from the other side of the room, first by one man, then another.
Eight*
Trip found he was beginning to hate Jamie Cullen. He was sitting at his desk, glaring at the DEA agent,
wishing the man would just get on a plane and get his ass back to Florida where he belonged. That the
man had brought real danger into the station - danger for Rhianna - made Trip so angry he had already
snapped a dozen pencils in half with another number three soft lead on the verge of being added to the
pile.
"You can just about bet you're being watched," Cullen was saying. "When you leave, make damned
sure you don't look back to see if you're being followed."
Boucharde was chewing on his thumbnail. "The tracking system is operational, isn't it?"
Jamie nodded although he did not take his gaze off Rhianna. "It's the best we had at the shop."
They were all there: Cortesio, Triplett, Fullick, Samuel, Darlington, Donne, and Corbettson, although
the latter was sitting morosely at his desk and glaring at the others as they fawned over Marek.
"We'll follow you every step of the way," the DEA agent said. "Don't worry."
"Don't worry!" Trip snorted snapping his last pencil in twain. He threw the pieces on his desk. "This is
insane! You're gonna get her killed!"
Rhianna sighed and held up a hand when Cullen started to speak. She walked to her partner, leaned
over, and braced her hands on his desk.
"Listen to me, Neville," she said and immediately had the man's attention because she rarely called him
by his given name. It was an indication of how sick and tired she was of his interference and belly aching.
"We don't have a clue about where they've taken Irish. He could be anywhere within a hundred mile
radius of New Gregory by now."
"He could be dead."
Making a supreme effort to keep her anger in check, Rhianna nodded. "Yes, he could, but that isn't
likely. They want me and they want Jamie before they do anything to Nolan."
"You don't know that!" Trip came to his feet, his eyes blazing and his mouth twisted in a grimace of
uncontrollable aggression. "Can't you see how stupid this idea is?" He pointed at Cullen. "What has that
sonofabitch got to lose if you get killed out there trying to help Irish?"
"He's putting his own life on the line, too, Triplett!" she yelled back at him.
"Like his life is worth the same as yours?" Trip bellowed. "He's a junky!"
Cortesio snarled through his teeth and rushed forward, furious at Triplett. "Shut your mouth! The man
didn't have to come up here, Triplett. He don't have to put himself out there for those bastards to grab,
either, but that's what he's gonna do! He knows the risks he's taking. You wanna exchange places with
him, Neville?"
"Trip," Rhianna said in a reasonable voice. "I've got to do this. Don't you see?" Her partner was
shaking his head violently in denial. "There's no other way! I'll lead you right to them."
"And what if they find the tracking devices?" he asked, his eyes filling with tears. "We could lose you,
too!"
"You won't," she said with such steely confidence Trip could only stare at her, his mouth trembling with
emotion.
"I love you," he said. "I don't want anything to happen to you, Rhee!"
Rhianna knew it wasn't a man-woman love her partner had for her; it was more like a brotherly love,
but it was nice to hear and made her smile at him. "And I love you, too, Trip, but I've got to do this." She
reached out and took his arm. "I'm the only one who can."
"They want him," Trip said, nudging his chin toward Cullen. "Let him wear the trackers."
"He doesn't have a pierced ear, Trip," Cortesio explained with more patience than he felt.
"I'll pierce it for the motherfucker!"
"These are a woman's earrings," Boucharde pointed out. "On Cullen, they'd stand out like a petticoat."
"There is a limit to what I'll do for Coni," Jamie said dryly. "Wearing those earrings is out of the
question. They don't go with my shirt."
Trip jerked away from Rhianna's light hold. "You're determined to get yourself killed, aren't you?"
"Triplett," Darlington warned. "That's enough. This is hard for all of us. You're not the only one who's
worried about Irish and Marek."
Against the far wall, Caitlin Greiner - who had been forced to come down to the station for fear she
still might have had something to do with her brother's abduction - stared with disbelief at the cops. Now
and again, she'd flick her gaze toward Corbettson, who would roll his eyes with disgust at the whole
thing. She had wanted to call her attorneys, but since Ronald Nysberg had recommended the Midwest
Clinic, her request had been denied.
"Until we know what, if any, connection there is between him and Quinterras, you'll just have to sit
there and plan your lawsuit against us," Boucharde had informed her.
Caitlin wondered what they would do when they found out that Luis Quinterras was one of Ron's most
important clients and that the Colombian owned the company for whom Caitlin worked. She was
surprised no one had asked her yet if she knew Quinterras. Corbettson hadn't said anything to them, and
she had no intention of volunteering that information.
"You're going to do what you wanna do anyway," Trip snarled. He flung them all a look of anger.
"I'm going to do what I have to," Rhianna answered. She reached out and took the earrings from
Boucharde.
****
He knew someone was standing in front of him. There had been movement all around him. When he
felt the hand at his temple, he flinched, trying to move back, but he realized they were only going to
remove the blindfold and he stilled.
At first he couldn't see anything because his eyes were not accustomed to the brightness of the lanterns
hanging about him. He blinked, striving to adjust his vision, opening his lids only a little to allow his pupils
time to adjust. When he was able to keep his eyes open, he found himself staring at the man he had
labeled The Colombian. The scarred, twisted face looked at him with humor.
"You really have no idea who the hell I am, do you, Coni?"
The nickname registered, but the face was one he had never seen.
"Look closely, brown eyes," his captor whispered. "Imagine this face much younger." He reached out
and gripped Conor's chin. "Imagine it without the scars."
Conor's forehead creased. Younger? Without the scars? He couldn't picture it and tried to shake his
head in denial
"Oh, come now, Coni," the Colombian snickered. "You must remember me! If it hadn't been for
Daniel Keane, the men I had employed would have beaten you to death that night in Anniston!"