Traceless. HelenKay Dimon
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Название: Traceless
Автор: HelenKay Dimon
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
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Cam leaned in and studied the ring. When he straightened again, the frown morphed into a look of confusion. “I don’t get it.”
Connor did. The kick to his gut had him rubbing a hand over his stomach from the sharp whack of pain there. “It’s Jana’s.”
The phone he always carried with him buzzed in his pocket. It couldn’t be a coincidence his wife’s wedding ring arrived right as the private line only she knew about lit up. He braced his body for the killing blow.
If this was the way she planned to tell him their temporary separation had become permanent in her mind, she could forget it. He was not losing her. He’d get on a plane and fly to her. No more waiting or giving her space.
She asked and he obliged, even though every day without her sucked a piece of his soul away. But the end? No way. Wasn’t happening.
Feeling the heat of Cam’s stare and tension coiling inside, Connor slid his thumb across the screen and lifted the phone to his ear. “Jana?”
“No, but she says hello.”
The metallic twinge had Connor’s head snapping back. He recognized a voice modifier. More out of habit and training than actual thought, he pressed the speaker button.
Jana’s voice filled the room. “Connor, stay away!” The tremble gave way to a scream then all sound cut off.
“Jana!” Connor almost dropped the phone as adrenaline and anxiety thundered together in his brain.
The other voice filled the line again. “She’s done talking.”
The word done echoed in Connor’s head. “Where is she? Put her back on.”
“That’s enough.” The modifier only highlighted the menace in the person’s voice. “This isn’t a negotiation. You have your proof of life.”
“Who is this?” Connor could barely get the question out.
This time the voice laughed. “The man holding your wife. And if you want her back, you’d better get smart fast and figure out where she is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have seven hours and a long way to travel.”
The line cut out but Connor kept yelling over the buzzing sound in his ear. “Wait, where are you?”
“Okay.” The color drained from Cam’s face as he blew out a breath. “Any idea who that was?”
With a shaking hand, Connor hit the end button and fought off the mix of panic and fury whipping through him. “The man who kidnapped my wife.”
Chapter Two
The noises in Jana’s head roared, growing louder with each second until she woke with a start. She tried to move her arms and something pinched her stomach. She tugged again and bindings dug into her skin.
She bit back a scream as she opened her eyes. Blinking, she adjusted to the pale light and tried not to draw any attention or move her head as she glanced at the area right in front of her and just off to the sides. She couldn’t turn around and see behind her, but she picked up enough clues to know she’d been moved.
A small room with a few windows. No furniture except the rickety, hard chair under her. A wood floor thick with dust. And two bruisers dressed in black, standing on either side of a window next to what she assumed was the front door to this cabin. Without facing her, they looked like the same ones who burst through the door back at the office.
The pieces didn’t add up to anything good.
She searched her memory for a building that fit what she saw and remembered an abandoned shack about two miles from the charity. She’d found it while out walking one day, trying to clear her head and work through the pain of not being near Connor.
Connor... Because of her he would walk into a trap. She closed her eyes on the wave of pain that crashed over her.
“The princess is awake.”
At the sound of the male voice her eyes popped open again. Her captor, the one who had hovered over her earlier while he threatened Connor over the phone, stood right over her again. There still was nothing hiding his identity, which confirmed they did not plan for her to survive whatever they were plotting.
He or one of these guys must have knocked her out. Some way she’d ended up here with only these three. She had no idea how many hours had passed but could see from the area outside the window that it was dark outside. The sky took on an eerie gray and tall trees blocked her view of anything more than a few feet away from the building.
Hoping to stall, do anything to get her bearings again, she said the first thing that came into her head. “How is Connor supposed to find me here?”
The man she thought of as the leader shrugged. “He’s resourceful.”
“He’s not superhuman.” But he was close. He’d saved her from an impossible situation once before and she had to believe he would somehow do it again. But at what cost?
When he received the call he’d sat hours away in Maryland. There was no way he could catch a commercial flight at that hour. But he was ingenious. He knew people. He never spoke about his time before starting the Corcoran Team or whatever he did years ago in black ops, but it conditioned him for situations like this. She knew that much.
The leader crouched down and met her at eye level. “I am well familiar with your husband.”
“How?” Because if he knew Connor from the old days, this guy might have the same skills and then... She couldn’t think about the “then” part.
“You don’t need to worry about that now.”
“He won’t get here in time.” Even if he did land in Utah by the deadline, she had no idea how he would know where to look for her.
Shifting her shoulders, she tried to move her hands but they stayed locked behind her. There was a little give in the ropes binding her ankles, but too much shifting and the chair would tip over. She didn’t see how that would help her.
She concentrated, trying to figure out if she still had her phone, but the ties lay flat and tight against her body and she didn’t see any signs of bulging from the cell. That was really bad news since her phone had a chip in it and could provide Connor with a beacon to find her.
The idea had been for Connor to know her location at all times. He insisted it was a matter of safety, not trust. Before she left home she viewed it as further evidence of his overzealous need to wrap her up and store her away.
All that had changed now. The chip, the constant analysis, his insistence she run recovery drills with the team struck her as sound planning. The ability to commandeer a flight in record time might turn out to be the perfect trait in a husband.
“For your sake, let’s hope you’re wrong about your husband’s tardiness.” The leader stood up but stayed bent over her. His mouth loomed close to her ear. “And СКАЧАТЬ