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He should have said no. Letting Elena get her hands on his injured self when she seemed to enjoy his pain wasn’t a logical move. But blood was dripping down his forehead and he wondered if the injury was more serious than he’d thought. And he certainly wasn’t having any luck himself. He’d already wrecked two of the four available butterflies.
Elena brought a box of tissues with her and knelt beside him. She used a wad of tissues to wipe away the blood, and then quickly, efficiently closed the cut with the butterflies.
“It’s not too bad, only about an inch long.” She sounded like a concerned nurse. “It’s not bleeding very much now. I’m going to put this big bandage on it, but you might want to apply pressure for a little longer.”
“Okay.”
She did as promised. She had surprisingly gentle hands. Her breasts were right at his eye level, and he studied them leisurely. Not overly large, but not small, either, they were about the size of large, ripe peaches. Her blue dress was fairly modest, not displaying much in the way of cleavage, but he could still see the outline of those luscious breasts. She smelled good, too, like cinnamon and nutmeg.
If he focused on the pleasant sights and scents of Elena, he found that his head didn’t hurt too much.
“I get the feeling you’ve patched up people before,” he said, hoping to get her talking. Her voice was pleasant, too—as long as she wasn’t yelling at him.
“When I was younger, I had to deal with lots of injuries. My dad and older brothers would come home from the sugarcane fields with scratches and cuts, and my mother and grandmother and I would get out the iodine.”
“Iodine. Now that stuff hurts.”
“It was what we had on hand.”
“Was this in Mexico?”
“No, idiot. Cuba. You can’t tell a Mexican accent from Cuban?” Then she rattled off something that he actually understood. He’d picked up some Spanish from working construction, and from when he was incarcerated, too.
“I might be ignorant, but I’m not a pig,” he said.
“So, you understand Spanish. Am I supposed to be impressed? There, your wretched head is fixed for now. I think you’ll live, unfortunately.”
Her tone sounded closer to teasing than hateful, which pleased him no end. God, he was stupid, looking for crumbs of good humor from a woman he’d kidnapped. He was stupid for being attracted to her, too, but no one had ever accused him of being smart.
He’d been an idiot to shove Elena into his truck. More than likely, his ploy would only succeed in landing him in prison and wouldn’t help Eric at all. But nothing else had worked. This plan was all he had, and he was determined to get as much out of it as he could.
As Elena gathered up the trash and threw it into a wastebasket, Travis pushed himself to his feet. His eyes swam for a moment, but then the world righted itself.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. You can’t escape from here, and no one can hear you, so your best bet is to just stay calm. If your boss is a reasonable man, he’ll give me what I want, and I’ll let you go.”
“And if he doesn’t give you what you want? I doubt he will. Daniel doesn’t negotiate with people like you.”
“I’m willing to bet your welfare is important enough to him that he will.”
And if he doesn’t?
He would let her go anyway, of course. Then he would turn himself in and take his lumps.
CHAPTER THREE
“WAIT. CAN’T WE talk about—”
Travis slipped out the door and slammed it in her face. He couldn’t listen to her. He couldn’t look into those chocolate-brown eyes without feeling his resolve softening. It was time to contact Daniel Logan.
The bedroom was empty except for one straight-back chair in a corner. Travis remembered dragging it in there to stand on so he could open an air-conditioning vent. One of the chair’s slats was broken, which was why he hadn’t tried to sell it.
He could fix it; he hated throwing away perfectly good stuff that could be repaired and provide many more years of service.
The broken slat wouldn’t affect the use he put it to. He grabbed it and shoved it under the bathroom doorknob.
“Don’t leave me in here!” Elena screamed at him through the door. “Please, please, I can’t stand it.”
He turned resolutely and walked out the door.
He’d turned his cell phone off the minute he’d nabbed Elena so he couldn’t be located by the phone’s ping. He wasn’t sure how fast Daniel Logan could mobilize whatever people and resources he had, but probably pretty damn fast. The guy was powerful. Still, it was possible Elena hadn’t even been missed yet. If she had a lot of autonomy on the job, her absence might not be unusual.
Travis got in his truck and drove. He’d been driving for twenty minutes before he realized he should have gotten Daniel’s private number from Elena. The only number Travis had was for Project Justice. Well, that would have to do.
Once he was miles away from the repo’d house, in some nameless, nondescript neighborhood, he pulled over, got out his cell, turned it on, took a deep breath and dialed.
“Project Justice, how may I direct your call today?” The woman who answered had a tone of voice that didn’t match the polite words. She sounded like an older lady—probably that dragon who’d manned the front desk the time he’d dropped in at their offices, hoping to convince someone to listen to him.
Celeste, that was her name. “Good afternoon, Celeste. My name is Travis Riggs.” There was no point in trying to hide his identity. “Please listen carefully, as I’ll only say this once. I’ve kidnapped Daniel Logan’s assistant, Elena.”
“You did what?” Celeste shrieked.
God, the woman could shatter eardrums. “Please, don’t talk. Just listen. She’s safe and unhurt—for now. My demands are simple. Project Justice must take on the case of Eric Riggs, my brother, who was unjustly convicted of his wife’s murder. Have Daniel Logan personally call this number and leave a message, indicating that he agrees. Have him provide me with this detail—What piece of the victim’s jewelry went missing?—to convince me he really did investigate the case. When he does that, I will return Elena unharmed and turn myself in to the authorities. Do you understand?”
“Now, you listen here, young man. Daniel Logan doesn’t negotiate with—”
“Do you understand?”
There was a long pause before Celeste answered. “Perfectly.”
“I’ll check my messages in twenty-four hours.” He disconnected and turned off his phone. Despite the cool fall weather, he was sweating. He opened the window and cursed. Making that call had sickened him. But he had to keep СКАЧАТЬ