Betrayed

Chapter 28

Shane had no trouble following the tracker on Elena’s car. When she’d arrived early, he’d driven past the entrance to the industrial park and kept following the secondary road for ten minutes in case someone was watching to see if he was behind her.

He pulled off onto a side street and turned around, waiting with his lights off to find out what would happen.

Elena’s car started again, and she drove toward the warehouse.

Max looked at his equipment. “She’s driven inside.”

Shane heard a cell phone ring, then Elena getting out of the car and opening another vehicle door.

Then she was speaking on the phone. To Mr. Big, he presumed.

“He figured we’d track her,” Max said.

They listened as the man said, “You will take off all your clothing and stand in front of the camera so I can make sure you’re not wearing a wire and you’re not armed.”

“Jesus,” Shane swore. “Did I hear that right?”

“I think so. He’s making her get undressed.”

Shane clenched his hands on the wheel. “I want to go in there and get her out of this.”

Max put a hand on his arm. “You can’t.”

“I know,” Shane shouted. “But I want to. I mean, that bastard is making her strip.”

“And hopefully she’s alone there,” Jack said from the backseat.

All Shane could do was clutch the wheel and wait.

Elena looked up at the camera. “You want me to take my clothes off?”

“That’s the only way I can be sure you’re not wearing a wire.”

She gulped.

“Think of it like a visit to the doctor’s office. You get undressed for the doctor, don’t you?”

She wanted to curse at the man, but she knew that would do her no good.

“Step into the middle of the garage where there’s a circle painted on the floor. Stand in front of your car and start stripping,” Mr. Big ordered.

She stepped to the spot he’d indicated.

“Or think of it like strip poker,” the voice from the phone said. “Did you ever play strip poker?”

“No,” she bit out.

“Pity. Probably you were too much of a straight arrow. That’s what got you in trouble now, you know. If you’d just brought that information to Alesandro, none of this mess would have happened.”

Of course, he was right, but she felt like she was standing in an open field, being buffeted by a howling wind.

She’d thought she was prepared for whatever this guy was going to throw at her, but she hadn’t been prepared for this. And she’d brought it on herself, like he’d said.

With her teeth clenched and her eyes cast down, she started unbuttoning her blouse. When it was undone, she laid it on the hood of the car. Next, she unzipped her slacks, folded them, and laid them with the blouse.

“Take off the rest of it,” Mr. Big ordered.

She fought to keep her hands steady as she unhooked her bra and took it off, then her panties, so that she was standing naked in front of the camera.

“Look at me.”

“What?”

“Look up at the camera.”

Silently she did as he asked.

“You are under my control now.”

She wanted to scream at him, but she kept the protest locked behind her clenched teeth.

“Very nice,” he purred. “Turn around so I can see the back of you.”

She did, then faced the camera again. “Can I get dressed now?”

“Say please.”

“Please.”

“Actually, no. Take off your socks and shoes.”

She gulped. With no other choice, she bent to comply.

There was a long moment of silence. She stood with her heart pounding, wondering how good a view he was getting. “You have a gun strapped to your ankle,” her tormenter said. “And a tracking device on your other ankle. Is that right?”

“Yes,” she managed.

“Take them off.”

She fought to keep silent as she took off the holster with the gun and untaped the tracker.

“That’s better,” he said. “Stand up and turn around again, so I can make sure you don’t have any more tricks up your…” He laughed.

As ordered, she turned in a slow circle, coming back to her starting position.

“One more thing. Lift up that beautiful shiny, black hair of yours and turn so I can see both ears. I want to know for sure you’re not wearing a Bluetooth.”

Grimly, she lifted her arms, lifting her breasts as she displayed her ears.

“Nice,” he murmured. “You can get dressed in the clothes I put in the backseat of your new car.”

She walked stiffly to the car and pulled out a T-shirt, slacks, and bedroom slippers. There was no underwear. But at least she’d be covered.

Quickly she dressed in the T-shirt and pants, feeling marginally better. Then she scuffed her feet into the slippers.

“Very good. I’ll tell you where to go after you get into the car and leave the garage. Be sure to take the phone with you.”

“Wait a minute,” she called out.

“For what?”

“The information you want is in my purse. I have to get it from my car.”

“Not the whole purse. Take out the memory stick or whatever it is and hold it up.”

“How do I know you won’t…come in and take it?”

“Because I’m assuming your boyfriend’s close enough to rescue you. At least for now.”

Instead of arguing, she walked slowly back to the car, planning her moves as she went. Leaning inside, she pulled her purse toward her, hoping that her body hid what she was doing. She had one chance to get this right, and only one.

She reached inside, taking out the twenty-two revolver and shoving it into the waistband of her slacks. Then she took out the SIM card, the one that had the fake information, and held it up.

“Here it is.”

“What the hell is that?”

“A SIM card. From the phone Blake left in his office drawer.”

She heard the man on the other end of the line curse. Probably he’d sent Bert to search the office, and Bert had left the phone where it was. “Bring it to the new car.”

Again she complied, then slipped behind the wheel and adjusted the seat so she could reach the pedals before starting the engine and driving slowly out of the garage.

He’d separated her from the tracker on the other car and from the one strapped to her leg, but maybe…

She didn’t finish the thought. Mr. Big was speaking to her again.

“We’re going to take back roads to Columbia. That way I can tell if anyone’s following you.”

“Columbia?”

“Yes, to another industrial park.”

“And my brother will be there.”

“If you do what you’re supposed to. Get going. I’ll give you directions as you drive. And, of course, I’ll know where you are at all times.”

Feeling sick, she did as he directed. As she drove down the road, thunder rumbled and a fork of lightning split the sky in front of her like a warning sign.

In the next moment, rain began to pound down on the car.

“Shit!” In the other car, Shane shouted out his frustration. “We’ve lost the sound. We can’t hear what he’s saying to her.”

“We can still track her,” Max said.

“We hope.”

Max fiddled with some dials on his equipment, and Shane could tell from his actions that he wasn’t having any success.

“What’s wrong?” Shane growled.

“The storm is interfering with the tracker we had her swallow. I don’t know…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence.

“Shit.” Shane repeated his earlier assessment. “I thought that thing might not work.”

“It’s the storm. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll get her back.”

Shane drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, praying that Max could work it out, because if he didn’t, Shane wasn’t sure he could keep his sanity.

He would lose his mind if anything happened to her.

He’d been going through the motions of living until he’d met her. And even when he’d told himself he didn’t trust her, he knew he was forming an attachment to her.

He didn’t want to go back to the life where it was a struggle to heave himself out of bed and get through every day.

He wanted to shout in frustration. He wanted to pray aloud. He wanted to start driving and hope that he was going in the right direction and that when they found her, they’d be close enough to save her. But he did none of those things because he was in the car with his two friends, and he wasn’t going to let them see that he was skating on the edge of his emotions.

Yeah, who was he fooling? He was sure they knew what he was suffering, but at least he could hang on to his illusions.

“What have you got?” he said to Max, trying to keep his voice even.

“Nothing yet.”

He didn’t bother cursing again. It wasn’t going to do any good.

He watched rain sheet down the windshield and prayed that the storm would pass.

Finally, there was an electronic beeping from the machine in Max’s lap.

“I got her,” he said.

“Where is she?”

“On back roads. I guess to make it easy to see if anyone’s following.”

“Where’s she going?”

Max was silent for several moments. “If I had to guess, I’d say Ellicott City or Columbia. But the rendezvous point could be a vacant farm out in the country, for all we know.”

“That’s just great.”

“We can circle around, then head for the Columbia-Ellicott City area and see if the signal gets stronger.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“We can head into the backcountry.”

Elena hunched forward, struggling to see where she was going with water pouring down on her windshield. Her headlights cut through the steady rain, making the road in front of her murky as the storm unleashed its worst. She didn’t know this part of Maryland, and she didn’t like driving these narrow roads in a downpour, but she had no choice.

Max had told her that the tracker on her car was only part of their plan to follow her. The tracker on her leg had been a decoy that the men expected Mr. Big to find and make her throw away. That had happened as predicted. But before she’d left the hotel, she’d swallowed a capsule with another tracker inside. They still should be able to follow her—if the thing was working correctly. She’d been able to tell from Max’s face that he wasn’t one hundred percent certain that it was going to work. But he had acted confident, and she had to be, too.

She drove on through the downpour. It had been an eternity since she’d heard from Mr. Big. Had she lost the connection in the storm? If she had, then what?

Her tension mounted. With no other option, she kept driving, praying that she would hear from the man who was holding her brother. Finally, the phone next to her crackled.

“A road is coming in on the right. Take it.”

She dragged in a breath and let it out before answering, “Okay.”

“Don’t have an accident in the rain,” Mr. Big said, his voice cheerful, and she knew he was confident that he had total control of this situation. Hopefully, he was dead wrong.

“I won’t,” she answered, thinking that he probably was hoping she’d crash, and then he wouldn’t have to trade anything for the SIM card.

Shane drove as fast as he could through the pelting rain and darkness, feeling sick as he calculated his chances of getting Elena out of this alive.

“Take it easy,” Max murmured as the car skidded on the wet pavement and Shane fought to keep control. “If we crash, you’re not going to be any good to her.”

“I know that,” Shane snapped and slowed down a few miles per hour.

“We’re getting closer to her,” Max said.

“Thank God.”

“We’re going faster than she is. We should be able to catch up.”

“Well, not entirely,” Shane cautioned. “We don’t want anyone to think we picked up her trail.”

In the backseat, Jack was consulting computer maps while Max manned the tracker up front.

“I think she’s headed for another industrial park,” Jack said.

“Okay, good. That’s better than an isolated farmhouse where we’d have to get out and sneak through the fields.”

Max made a sound of agreement, then caught his breath.

“What?”

“She’s stopped abruptly. Either she’s there or she had an accident.”

“How fast can we get to her?”

“If you don’t crash, in ten minutes.”

Shane gripped the wheel, knowing that ten minutes could mean the difference between life and death.

Elena pressed on the brake, the car fishtailing on the slick road surface. Ahead of her she could see water flowing across the pavement.

“There’s a flood,” she said aloud.

“What are you talking about?” the man on the other end of the line snapped.

“Water is flowing across the road.”

“Go through it.”

“It looks like it’s too deep.”

She was greeted with a string of curses, then “Just a minute.”

She waited with her heart pounding.

“Back up,” he snarled. “Go to the last intersection. Take Owen Mills Road.”

“Okay.”

She looked behind her and saw that nobody else was dumb enough to be out in this storm.

Turning the wheel, she tried to make a U-turn, but the road wasn’t wide enough for her to do it and stay on the blacktop. Her right front tire crunched onto the wet gravel shoulder. There must be a thin layer hiding mud below because the tire sank in, and she had to back up, the wheel grinding as she fought to gain the pavement again.