The Kidnapping of Kenzie Thorn. Liz Johnson

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      “D-don’t,” she stammered pushing against him. His proximity was too close, too personal, too intimate. She didn’t want to be this close to someone so dangerous. Someone who made her heart beat frantically in fear. Someone who, at the same time, made her feel something very different than fear.

      “Don’t what?” Myles rumbled. He didn’t move back even a fraction of an inch, and his breath fanned her face, invading her space all the more.

      “Don’t try to make me feel better after you—you—you kidnapped me!”

      “Aren’t you a little old to be kidnapped?” He chuckled.

      “That’s not the point and you know it! You got out of prison, now let me go!” Her voice rose in aggravation, but kept an even pitch. She tried to push against him again, tried to create more space between them, but he was immovable. “You’re in my bubble,” she finally said, her temper making her respond completely inappropriately to an armed felon.

      He laughed out loud, a deep, rich sound that would have been contagious in any other situation. “Your bubble?”

      “Yes, my bubble!” she said, indignation rapidly rising. “My space, my personal space. You’re invading it.”

      “Are you trying to tell me to back off?”

      “Yes!”

      He laughed again as he let her go and leaned back into the passenger seat. Stretching his long legs out as much as allowed by the compact car, he propped his hands behind his head and said, “Drive on. We’ve got a ways to go yet tonight.”

      The infuriating man! She stomped on the gas pedal, sending the car bouncing into the inky night. The thick tree line on their right began to thin as they plunged headlong into the darkness.

      Kenzie tried to focus on finding another road or sign of life in this wilderness. Any sign of civilization could save her.

      Her eyes scanned feverishly back and forth to no avail. All she could see was the ditch on the left side of the road and sporadic pine trees on the right.

      Suddenly a small deer darted through the headlights, and she slammed on the brakes for the second time that night, just missing the little creature. “Probably just running from a mountain lion,” Myles mumbled, sounding half-asleep.

      How could he be falling asleep? He was kidnapping her, and he was falling asleep?

      She took a deep breath and pushed her indignation aside. All the better for her if he wasn’t paying attention—it meant he wouldn’t notice her planning her escape.

      Her focus on just that plan, she looked for intersections crossing the road. But there were none. No mailboxes along the gravel indicating a house down a driveway. No street signs. Nothing. No indication of where they were, or where they had been. Miles and miles from Evergreen or any other town.

      Would Myles be caught before something terrible happened? Would they ever track and find him? Whatever his plan was, it seemed to be working. They probably didn’t even know he was missing from the prison yet. And she had no plans for the evening, so no one would report her as missing until the next day. Everything seemed to be going his way. Even the fine gravel conspired to keep them from being tracked, billowing up behind the tires and then settling down over their tracks.

      But Mac would find her. He always did.

      A movement beside her drew her attention. Myles rubbed his left knee, kneading the muscles of his thigh directly above his kneecap, as though in pain. His eyes appeared to be closed, and a grimace wrinkled his forehead and pinched his lips. His long fingers spanned his knee and massaged the tendons on either side.

      He made no other indication that he was awake.

      Kenzie turned back to the road ahead, her eye catching for an instant on the green digital clock on the dashboard, reading 12:17 a.m. Had they really left the prison more than two hours before? How long ago had they left the paved road? She had no idea! She mentally kicked herself for not paying more attention to such an important detail.

      “Lamebrain,” she mumbled.

      “You say something?” Myles asked, his voice not even husky from sleep.

      “No.” She sat ramrod straight, turning the car along a slight curve.

      Silence reigned for several more minutes. Suddenly Myles said, “Stop here.”

      “Where?”

      “Right here.”

      She slowed to a stop and peered through the windshield, searching for the reason he told her to stop.

      And suddenly she saw it. A small log cabin straight ahead of them. How had he known where to stop? This entire scenario was altogether too strange. How had she gotten caught up in this? Why had Myles chosen her?

      She was an easy mark. She made herself an easy mark. That’s why he chose her. She had let down her guard in his presence, and he took advantage of it.

      “Here we are,” he announced, getting out of the car after snatching the keys from the ignition. “Let’s go.”

      

      Myles took a step out of the car, and his left knee almost buckled beneath him. He stumbled, but caught himself before falling all the way to the gravel. As he swiped at the keys that he had immediately taken from Kenzie then promptly dropped, his knee screamed again.

      He hated the stupid high school football injury. His dream of being a navy SEAL had crashed around him the moment his ACL snapped when the Yuma High Criminals’ defensive lineman sacked him in the city championship game.

      Now the doctors said that the scar tissue from the original repair surgery was inflamed and would keep him in pain until they did another surgery. But then he got this assignment. It was hard to get good medical attention in prison. It was hard to get much of anything in prison. But the mission would be over soon. They were only a hundred miles from the safe house. And he had a good feeling about Whitestall. He would wrap up this investigation quickly.

      Righting himself before Kenzie even exited the car, he stalked toward the cabin’s front door. His knee cooperated by sheer force of his will as he berated himself for squatting for so long.

      A jumpy Kenzie slowly followed him toward the cabin, her eyes darting around the blackness. Natural beauty would soon surround them in the golden glow of the sunrise.

      Now the moon cast an ethereal radiance around the young woman’s tiny frame. Her usually angelic features hardened as she glared into his face. She hated him. He tried to convince himself that it didn’t bother him.

      “Why won’t you let me go?” she tried again.

      “I can’t. Not yet.” It was the truth. Well, mostly the truth.

      Lost in thoughts of the truths he hadn’t told and tugging at the water-warped cabin door that refused to open, he almost missed Kenzie’s sudden spin and quick steps toward the woods on his right. His hand shot out, and he grabbed her elbow. “Not so fast.”

      When the door opened with a pop, he pushed her inside, following СКАЧАТЬ