Kitabı oku: «Parallel Lies», sayfa 3
“I agree,” Sabrina murmured. “He needs to follow his instincts. That’s what Dad would say if he were here, right?” Turning to Zack, she insisted cheerfully, “Let’s do it.”
“One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven…ninety-two… three…” Sabrina yawned, losing interest in the numbers as she succumbed to an uncharacteristic feeling of peace and tranquility.
“Sabrina Sullivan?”
“Yes?”
“How do you feel?”
“I feel good.”
“Good.” Zack cleared his throat. “I’m going to ask you a few questions. Just do your best, okay?”
“Okay.”
“If you start feeling uncomfortable—for any reason—just let me know and I’ll wake you up. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now tell me about John Derringer.”
“Johnny?”
“Right.”
She sighed. “I liked him. A lot. Now I hate him.”
“He has that effect on everyone,” Zack assured her. “Do you remember talking to Johnny the way you’re talking to me now? In this kind of a mood? Calm like this?”
“I don’t know.” She squirmed in her chair. “I don’t remember.”
“Johnny gave you some instructions. Do you remember that?”
“I don’t know.”
“He told you to forget about your little chat with him. And you forgot it, just like he told you to do. That was good, Sabrina. But now I want you to try and remember what he said. Just a few words. Can you do that for me?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember any words.”
“Okay, shh. It’s fine. Let’s talk about your sister for a few minutes instead. Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to call her Michelle? Or Shelby?”
“Her name is Shelby now.”
“Okay, that’s fine. When Shelby talked to you about Johnny, did she mention what they talked about?”
“Everything.”
“Right. Everything. But did she mention anything specifically? Do you think he asked about your father?”
“Dad?”
“Right. Did Johnny talk to Shelby about him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Johnny ever ask you about him?”
“I don’t remember! I don’t want to talk about Johnny.”
“That’s fine. We won’t talk about him anymore. Let’s talk about your father instead. Would you like that?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever talk to you the way I’m talking to you now?”
Sabrina nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay, good. Do you remember what he talked to you about?”
“We talked about Shell,” Sabrina murmured.
“What did he say about your sister?”
“He told me to protect her, because I’m the oldest. It’s my mission,” she added proudly.
Zack laughed. “How old are you right now?”
“I’m nine.”
“Did your father tell you anything else? Maybe when you were older? Did he share secrets with you when he talked to you this way?”
“No. He just told me to protect Shell. But I didn’t,” she admitted unhappily. “I let a bad man take her away.”
“Sabrina, listen to me. I don’t want you to think about that right now. Do you understand? I want you to think about Theo Howell.”
She felt the sense of calm return. “Uncle Theo?”
“Right. How do you feel about him?”
“I love him.”
“Do you have any other feelings? Feelings you can’t explain? Any desire to hurt him that confuses you?”
“Hurt him?” She shook her head. “No. Never.”
“And what about Perimeter? Do you want to destroy it?”
“No.”
“Do you want to hurt anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you want to hurt?”
“I want to hurt Adonis Zenner. I want to kill him.”
“Okay, shh. That’s fine. What about Johnny? Do you want to kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told me you hate him. But you don’t want to hurt him?”
“I want to find him,” she explained carefully. “And I want to pay him back for taking my sister. But I don’t want to kill him unless he makes me do it.”
“Okay, I understand,” Zack said, his tone soothing. “You hate him and you want to find him.”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust him?”
“I don’t trust anyone but myself. And Shelby.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No.”
“You let me hypnotize you. That means you trust me a little, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You trust Uncle Theo, don’t you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Okay, Sabrina.” Zack’s voice was steady and inspiring. “You did great. I’m going to wake you up now. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll count to five, and when you hear me say ‘five,’ you’ll wake up. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“When you wake up, you’ll remember everything we’ve said. But it won’t upset you. You’ll feel refreshed. Rested. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m going to count now. On five, you’ll wake up. One, two, three, four, five.”
Sabrina stirred and opened her eyes, then smiled sheepishly. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Zack’s green eyes were twinkling. “You did great.”
“I didn’t remember anything Johnny said.”
“He made you forget the session. But it seems like that’s all he managed to accomplish. Your subconscious must have really resisted him.”
Sabrina sighed. “You were right about Dad. He really did hypnotize me when I was a kid. I don’t know why that bothers me, but it does.”
“Seems pretty harmless. He just wanted you to look out for your baby sister.” Zack’s smile widened. “You must’ve been a cute kid. Calling it your mission.”
“That’s how it was with Dad. He made everything so much fun and dramatic. Life and death. But still just a game. I loved it. Then everything changed.”
“When Adonis killed him.”
She nodded. “And now Shelby’s in danger because of her connection to Dad’s past. It’s so creepy to think of Johnny alone with her, hypnotizing her at will. Making her do things. Reveal things. Forget things.” She cocked her head to the side. “If you could use DT3 on me, could you make me remember what Johnny was searching for in my head?”
“Theoretically,” Zack admitted. “He gave you a post-trance suggestion to forget the whole session. With DT3, I could counteract that, unless he password-protected it. Then it would take more time and some serious hacking.”
Sabrina winced at the harsh term, even though she realized he only meant it in the computer sense. “So if Dad did that—hid information in our heads and protected it with a password—Johnny could be trying to hack into that? That would explain why it’s taking him so long, right?”
“It’s a possibility,” Zack confirmed. “But it doesn’t seem like Sully did anything like that to you. And since you’re the oldest, it’s logical he would have hidden it in your head, not Shelby’s.”
“That makes sense.”
Zack nodded. “My guess is, John’s after a simple memory. But it’s taking time—not because it’s password-protected, but because he’s fishing for it. Maybe he doesn’t know exactly when the event happened, for example. So he’s regressing her, probing, that sort of thing. Zeroing in on it, but it’s taking some time.”
“I like that better than the hacking scenario,” Sabrina admitted. “Do you think he’ll let her go once he gets what he wants?”
Zack hesitated. “I guess that depends on his ultimate agenda. And what shape she’s in by then, mentally and otherwise. I just hope she still believes it’s a romantic getaway. If she figures out what’s going on, or if he stops pretending to care about her, she’ll be scared.”
“If she figures out what’s going on, she’ll try to escape,” Sabrina countered. When Zack gave a skeptical shrug, she smiled. “I hope Derringer underestimates her the same way you do. That gives her a strategic advantage.”
“The only strategic advantage we have is time. He doesn’t know about the second message she left you, so he thinks he has three more days before you get suspicious. We need to use every minute, so I’m outta here.” He handed Sabrina the stack of reports from Connor. “Find me the picture that looks the most like Shelby. I want to circulate it to my crew.”
“I brought a great photo of her with me, just in case. It’s in the trunk of my car.”
“Good. You two girls change hair color so often, it’s tough to keep track.”
She bristled at the implied criticism. “We went brunette at RAP’s suggestion. But over the years, we gradually phased back to blond.” Fingering a lock of her own hair, she explained, “This is our natural color. Shelby’s is the same, only longer, and with some added highlights, so it’s a little blonder.”
He pulled out a notebook and pen. “Height? Weight? You’re taller, right?”
“Yes. She’s five-five. Probably one hundred twenty pounds. She packed for a tropical island, which means lots of pink sundresses and strappy sandals. If any witnesses saw her, they’ll remember her.” She swallowed a lump of affection and concern. “I’ll get that photo. Wait here.”
She was glad for an excuse to head outside for a gulp of fresh air. All this talk about Shelby was getting to her. Too much talk, not enough action. And all the while, Johnny was invading Shelby’s mind. Endangering her sanity. All for some nefarious, unfathomable purpose.
If only you hadn’t been allergic, she accused herself as she fumbled for her car keys. He would have taken you, and Shell would be safe.
Popping the trunk of her convertible, she quickly located the glossy photograph of her sister, and as she looked at it, the tightness returned to her throat. Shelby was so innocent. So trusting. But if she figured out what was going on—well, she was a Sullivan. Trained from the cradle to protect herself.
Could Shelby really escape from a seasoned criminal like Derringer? Sabrina wondered. Neither of them had ever really been put to the test. But she had to believe their father’s hard work hadn’t been in vain.
If only Dad were here. He’d know what to do, she told herself. As competent as Zack was beginning to seem, Sabrina still had no illusions about him. He was too young. Too temperamental. Too driven by passion. He’d do his best because of his devotion to Sully Sullivan and his hatred for Derringer. He might even be able to find Shelby in time. But would he be able to outwit Derringer once he got there?
No. That’s where Sabrina would be invaluable. She had her father’s instincts. His cool head. She had to be there when Zack made his move against Derringer. But she knew he’d try to exclude her, either to protect her or because he thought she’d get in the way.
“Which is where this little baby comes in handy,” she said out loud, pulling a black-leather shaving kit from her suitcase. Inside the kit—affectionately known as Sully Sullivan’s “bag of tricks”—was the collection of gadgets she had smuggled into RAP via Zorro’s cat carrier.
Locating a handheld computer, she dislodged the backing and retrieved a sheet of minuscule sensors. With one of these, she could easily track Zack’s movements, using the computer’s gridded screen and global positioning capabilities.
One of the tiny sensors was already missing from the sheet, having been affixed by Sabrina to the inside hood of Shelby’s car the day it was purchased. If only Johnny had used that vehicle to kidnap her sister, they could have found her in an instant.
Now she was tempted to do the same with Zack’s shiny black convertible, but if he switched to air travel, she’d lose him. She needed to attach it to something he’d carry with him at all times.
On impulse, she unhooked the gold chain she wore around her neck, then popped open the attached locket to reveal tiny photos of her mother and father. Pulling up the edge of Sully Sullivan’s smiling face, she slipped a sensor underneath, then covered it with the picture.
Just as she was double-checking her handiwork, she heard a door slam. Looking up, she saw Zack coming down the steps of the Howell mansion with an overstuffed briefcase in his hand, so she closed the trunk, then smiled and offered him the photo of Shelby. “Here it is.”
“Great.” He cleared his throat. “Before I go, I’d like to apologize. I was a jerk when you first got here, and I’m sorry.”
“Find my sister and all is forgiven. And if you see her before I do, give her this.” She held out the necklace.
Accepting it, he looked inside the locket. “Your mom? I never saw a picture of her before. You girls look a lot like her. A lot like Sully, too.”
“Take good care of it, okay?” Sabrina asked softly. “When Shelby sees it, she’ll know she can trust you.”
“Good idea.” He nodded his approval. “She might not believe she needs to be rescued, right? She’ll trust John, and be suspicious of me.”
“Right. And even if she realizes she’s been kidnapped, she’ll be suspicious of everyone. Except me. Which is why I need to be there.” She touched his arm. “Call me as soon as you get a lead, please?”
“Sure. You’ll be the first to know.” He flashed a confident smile. “I’ll check in tomorrow. In the meantime, if you think of anything else I should know, call me. Here’s my number.”
She accepted his business card, then thanked him and waved goodbye until he had roared away in his sports car.
She knew he was lying, of course. He had no intention of sharing information with her. At least, not willingly. But thanks to the global positioning device, she would track his every movement. If he got a lead on Shelby’s location, Sabrina would head there as soon as he made his move.
And in the meantime, maybe she’d find the location first.
Chapter 3
“Shelby? Baby, wake up.”
Shelby York, aka Michelle Sullivan, snuggled under a lightweight blanket, craving another few minutes of sleep but unable to resist the sexy voice that called to her. Opening one eye, she murmured, “Johnny? Did I fall asleep again?”
“You’re hopeless,” he confirmed. “We were supposed to go for a walk, remember?”
She struggled to a sitting position on the overstuffed couch, then glared playfully. “You’re the one who keeps wearing me out with the swing-from-the-rafters sex.”
He laughed. “I’d offer to wear you out a little more, but I’ve gotta get started on dinner. You’re already looking like you’ve lost some weight. I don’t want that Banshee sister of yours mad at me when we get home.”
“Hey!” Shelby stuck her finger to within centimeters of his face. “Watch what you say about Briana. She likes you a lot, you know. Even though you make her sick to her stomach.”
She was tempted to ask him again to let her call her big sister, just to let her know everything was fine. But every time she mentioned making contact with the outside world, it seemed to hurt Johnny’s feelings. He was such a romantic. And so unbelievably devoted to her, it humbled her. He had designed this getaway so that they could shut out the rest of the world—no phones, no e-mail, not even any newspapers.
And she had pretended to agree to his terms, all the while planning to check in with Sabrina every day. But he had foiled that plan by sneaking her phone out of her purse when she wasn’t looking. And because he was so darling and romantic about it, she hadn’t had the guts to confess to him that she had left a second message for her sister, promising to call.
Instead she had assumed she could sweet-talk him into letting her use his phone—the one he’d brought “strictly for emergencies”—to eventually call Sabrina. But Johnny had been resistant to her charms on that one issue, making up for it by slavishly indulging her every other wish.
As much as Shelby wanted to just let it go, she knew Sabrina well enough to guess that she was about to come unglued with worry. And since Plan A had failed—as had Plan B, which involved secretly mailing a letter to her sister—she had no choice but to turn to Plan C.
Looping her arms around Johnny’s neck, she murmured, “You know what would really hit the spot?”
“Depends on the spot,” he replied with a wink.
Shelby pretended to be shocked. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m talking about dinner. I’d kill for a pizza. I’ve been craving one all day.”
“Pizza?” He frowned. “I’m not sure I’ve got the ingredients. For the crust, sure. And I brought cheddar cheese, so I could probably rig something up—”
“Johnny?”
“Yeah?”
“I want the kind that comes to the door in a cardboard box. There must be places in Truckee that deliver, right?” She jumped to her feet and scurried into the kitchen, where she began rummaging through drawers. “I’m sure there’s a phone book around here.”
“I thought you loved my cooking.”
“Cravings can’t be ignored,” she told him. “We’ll have to pay the guy extra to drive all the way up the hill, but it’ll be worth it. Do you like pepperoni?”
“What happened to our deal?” he protested. “Just you and me. Alone in the woods. I don’t remember anything about a threesome with a pizza delivery guy.”
Shelby laughed. “You’re so funny. I promise I’ll get rid of him quickly, and then I’ll make it up to you for the rest of the night. Just give me your phone—”
“Sheesh, baby, our whole romantic getaway is falling apart.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “We said no phones for a week, remember?”
“No phones for me,” she retorted. “But you got to bring yours.”
“Because I can be trusted, and you can’t.” He flashed a seductive grin. “You’d be gabbing to your sister or your students all day long if I let you. But I want you all to myself.” Lowering his mouth to her neck, he began to nuzzle expertly.
As always, Shelby weakened. He was so sexy! But she had to stick to the plan, so she insisted, “If you really loved me, you’d respect my cravings. What if you and I get married and pregnant some day, and I want pickles in the middle of the night? Are you going to deny me that, too?”
“Married and pregnant, huh? That sounds pretty good.” He gave her a gentle kiss. “Tell you what. And this is a onetime-only deal. We’ll drive into town and order a pizza. Then we’ll bring it back here to eat it.”
“That’s more contact with the outside world, not less.”
“Yeah, but it’ll give me a chance to get some gas for the trip home. Take it or leave it.”
Shelby pursed her lips. “I’ll take it. On one condition. You go alone. It’ll give me some time to fix myself up for you.”
“You’re already so beautiful it hurts,” he murmured.
She loved it when he said those corny things, and had to resist an urge to melt into his arms. “There’s certain maintenance a girl would rather do when she’s all alone in the house. You see the glamour prep—the shampoo and lotion. But there’s another, scuzzier side—the shaving, the plucking, the callus removal. Please? I promise you’ll love the results.”
“Let me guess,” he drawled. “You want me to leave my phone with you?”
Shelby pretended to be wounded by the remark. “You’re the one who’ll be driving that dark, twisty road. I wouldn’t let you leave here without a phone.”
He winced in apology. “Okay, it’s a deal. Pepperoni? Anything else?”
“Just hurry back,” she told him, missing him already. “But first, give me a kiss goodbye.”
He obliged her with a kiss so warm and loving, she ached with guilt. She would definitely have to find a way to make this up to him.
“’Bye, Johnny. I love you.” She waved from the porch until his truck was out of sight, then she sprang into action. She had to find a phone, and probably had less than forty-five minutes to do so.
There has to be one here somewhere, she told herself, grabbing a set of keys off a hook by the door and heading for a storage shed near the garage. There are outlets in every room. Either Johnny hid the phones himself, or the owners put them away for safekeeping.
She had already looked through the various cabinets and closets in the house over the past four days, taking advantage of every trip Johnny made to the bathroom. But she hadn’t dared check the storage shed with him around. And there was a locked closet on the second floor that was clearly marked Private—Keep Out. Those were the likely spots.
Running along the path in her bare feet, she scolded herself for taking this clandestine approach, rather than just being straight with her boyfriend. Hadn’t he earned her honesty? Look how great he was—going for pizza just to please her! And this was how she repaid him?
It’s like Dad always said. You turn everything into a spy mission, she told herself, then she laughed out loud. It was true. This was so much fun. She’d find the phone, make the call, douse herself in perfume and seduce the heck out of Johnny when he got back. And someday, on their golden anniversary, she’d tell him how she had outwitted him.
Reaching the shed, she tried each key until she found the right one, then she swung open the door. “Ick,” she muttered, scanning the garden tools and sacks of manure. “That handyman should put some sort of air freshener in here.”
She had seen the worker on the premises once or twice, trimming trees and gathering fallen limbs. He never came close enough to the cabin for her to meet him. And Johnny had explained to her that the man was “a little slow” and that she shouldn’t try to talk to him, even though he was reportedly harmless.
Still, the handyman figured prominently in Plan B, which she had never had a chance to execute. Frustrated by Johnny’s rules, she had written her sister a letter—just a short one, explaining that she was safe, happy, in love and truly incommunicado. She had hoped to sneak it to the gardener to mail for her, but he never seemed to come close enough to the cabin for her to succeed. And in the meantime, she had worried that he might tell Johnny.
Plan C—finding a phone among the belongings of the cabin owner—was much, much better.
The shed was a dead end, so she sprinted back to the cabin and up the stairs to the owner’s private closet where again she tried the keys, but none fit. Undeterred, she retrieved a bobby pin from her overnight bag then returned to the closet and skillfully picked the lock. Opening the door, she was pleased to see several stacks of boxes.
She searched one container after another, being careful not to leave any sign of her invasion of the owner’s privacy. By the time she was on the last box, she was getting a little annoyed.
“There has to be a phone here somewhere!” she insisted out loud. “There are outlets in every room! But this is taking much too long.”
She realized too late that she should have just gone into town with Johnny, as he had suggested. She could have made an excuse, gone off to find a ladies’ room and tracked down a pay phone.
“Think, Shelby. What would Breezie do? What would Dad want you to do?”
She winced, knowing that her father would probably just build himself a phone out of little twigs and berries or something. And Sabrina would have held a gun to Johnny’s head long before this, demanding that he hand over the phone, the laptop and the keys to the truck.
The laptop…
Shelby felt a burst of hope and congratulated herself for all the hours of study she had dedicated to keeping her computer skills at cutting-edge sharpness. Even though Johnny hadn’t brought a modem cable—she had checked his case for that the first day—she might be able to rig something up.
But she didn’t have much more time, so she ran down the stairs as she brainstormed with herself. His laptop was sitting on the coffee table, where he had been using it to write in his journal. She knew from previous snooping that all the entries for the last three weeks were about her, and she loved him for that. Almost enough to respect his privacy, but at this point, her honor as a Sullivan was at stake, so she opened the lid of the computer and pushed the power button.
To her surprise, a screen asking for a password popped up. She hadn’t seen that before, and only now remembered that the computer had always been turned on when she’d done prior invasions of Johnny’s privacy. And the screen saver hadn’t been password-protected.
Fine. You’ve gotta hack it, and fast. Luckily he’s an open book. Guessing his password should be easy.
With a hopeful smile, she entered the letters S-H-E-LB-Y on the screen, and was a little hurt when the word was rejected. With lightning-fast fingers she began feeding in other combinations—his birthday, his middle name, his sister’s dog’s name. Nothing worked.
You just need to bypass the main program completely, she counseled herself. This is low-level software. It shouldn’t be much of a challenge. She worked diligently, trying every trick she had ever learned, but each effort was unsuccessful.
Which told her the software wasn’t quite as “low level” as she had suspected. In fact, this whole setup was beginning to seem more sophisticated than it appeared.
“What exactly do you have in here, Johnny Miller?” she asked, turning off the machine, then flipping it over and unfastening the back panel. Again she was surprised, this time by the hardware, including a miniature modem unlike any she had ever seen.
Satellite? she asked herself, stunned to think Johnny had had the capacity to access his e-mail all this time. After his lectures on tuning the world out!
He wouldn’t lie to you, she chastised herself. Just because he has the technology doesn’t mean he’s been using it. His firm supplied it, right? And he’s so clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff, he probably doesn’t even know what he has.
Fascinated, she slipped the satellite modem out of the casing, turning it over in her hands, examining it with admiration. If only she could get past that stupid, stupid password!
But the software was probably as sophisticated as the modem. Maybe even something developed at Perimeter, her father’s old company. With time, she could hack it—and would enjoy every minute. But the sound of tires on gravel outside the window told her she had more immediate challenges.
You’re busted, Shelby. Hook this thing back up and get ready to be adorable….
She had barely managed to replace the backing on the laptop and jump to her feet before Johnny strode in, a sexy smile on his face and an extra-large pizza box in his hand. “Hey,” he said, his eyes sweeping over her. “What happened to the makeover?”
“Hmm?” She kicked herself mentally for neglecting such an important detail. Now she really was busted, and had no choice but to either go on the offensive or throw herself on his mercy.
The solution came out of her mouth without any advance warning. “You had a satellite modem all this time? What other secrets have you been keeping from me?”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“You heard me. I’m really upset with you, Johnny. You lied to me. And worse, you made me lie to you.”
He studied her for a long, drawn-out moment. Then he murmured, “How did I lie to you? I never said what kind of modem I had. It was irrelevant, because I had no intention of using it. It just came with the computer.”
She forced herself not to back down. “Fine. You didn’t lie to me. But you violated my trust when you took my cell phone out of my purse without telling me.”
He tilted his head to the side, studying her again.
And again, Shelby struggled not to apologize. “I spent the whole time you were gone looking for a phone. The place is loaded with outlets, but not one damned phone anywhere! I even broke into the owner’s closet. That’s how crazy you’re making me.”
“You broke in?”
“That’s right. All because you’re a chauvinist. Your business is so important. Your emergencies are so vital. What about my emergencies? My sister is probably worried sick about me right now. That’s an emergency. And if you don’t let me use your phone right now to call her and tell her everything’s okay,” she warned, “then I’m going home tonight.”
He licked his lips, but still didn’t speak.
“There’s something you don’t know,” she admitted unhappily. “I left Sabri—I mean, Briana—a message before we left. I promised to check in with her. And I specifically asked her to leave me messages on my cell. I know I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. But you just don’t understand how close we are. She’s probably worried sick by now. It’s unnatural, asking us not to talk for a whole week. Even when we’re not speaking to each other we talk every day. Or at least we send polite e-mails or something. You’re being unreasonable. And it’s making me do things that are a little unreasonable, too.”
He hesitated, then a grin spread over his features. “I guess I really am in love with you.”
“Pardon?”
“You lied to me. Pretended to crave pizza just to get rid of me. Broke into someone’s private closet. And who knows what else? If that doesn’t scare me away, I guess nothing will.” His tone warmed. “You should have told me you left Briana that message. I don’t want her to be worried. And I definitely don’t want her blaming me. So let’s give her a call.”
“Really?” Shelby bit her lip, touched. “Thanks for understanding, Johnny.”
“No problem.” He set the pizza on the dining room table, but when she started to approach him, he held up a hand. “I want something in exchange. Something X-rated.”
She laughed. “When have I denied you anything like that?”
“This is something else. A fantasy. And it’s sort of time-sensitive, so it would be great if we could get to it before the call. I promise it’ll only take a half hour or so.”
“A time-sensitive fantasy?” she asked, intrigued.
His cheeks flushed to a gorgeous red. “When I was driving up here with the pizza, I started worrying about you. Thinking I shouldn’t have left you alone. I thought to myself, what if some escaped prisoner breaks in and ties her up?”
“This is your fantasy? Me getting attacked by a maniac?”
“Actually, me rescuing you from a maniac. The idea is, I get here before he does anything but tie you up. Or maybe he just opened a couple of buttons on your blouse. Then I burst in, kick his ass, throw him out the door, and you’re grateful.”
She was warming to the idea. “I’d still be tied up.”
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“Actually,” she admitted, “it’s my favorite part.”
His tone grew hoarse. “Mine, too.”
She felt a shiver of delight, knowing that he fantasized about saving her. She was glad he didn’t know the truth—that she could kick the ass of any escaped convict who dared try to tie her to a chair. Someday she’d probably have to tell him about all that—about her father and her training—but for now, it was going to be fun to play damsel in distress.
