Hidden Away

CHAPTER 23

SARAH melted into the front seat of the black SUV and waited anxiously for Garrett to walk around to the driver’s side after he closed her door. Thanks to his caution, she was now fully convinced people were poised to jump out of the trees at every turn.

Garrett tossed her bag and his into the backseat and then slid into the front. He quietly shut his door then cranked the engine. As he put it in gear, he glanced over at her.

“You okay?”

She gave a nervous nod.

“We’ve got a drive ahead of us, so get comfortable, but don’t let your guard down. If I tell you to do something, do it. No questions.”

Again she nodded and he started forward, navigating around the heavy tree cover where he’d parked the SUV.

They rocked and bumped over the broken-paved road toward the small village several miles away. But he turned off about a mile out of town and took an even smaller, one-lane dirt road to the north.

As if sensing her question, he said, “I want to stay off the main roads as much as possible and out of towns if I can help it. If I found you, so can others.”

She grimaced. “I made it that easy to find me?”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but it wasn’t that difficult. There isn’t much my brother can’t find out about someone. He probably knows your bra size.”

She glared over at him. “I see. And did he share this information with you too?”

Garrett grinned. “No need. I plan to find out that one myself.”

Her eyes widened and then she laughed at the blatant flirting. Just when she thought she had him figured out, he always did something to unbalance her. He might appear to be the uptight, grumpy person he swore his brothers labeled him, but he was also fun and a huge flirt. He was also extremely sensitive though if she told him that, he’d probably shoot himself. Or her.

“I’ve been so careful. Or I’ve tried to be. I still don’t understand how anyone found me on Isle de Bijoux.”

He gave her a look that suggested it was a stupid question and didn’t require an answer.

“Clearly I’m not cut out for a life on the run.”

“Why Isle de Bijoux anyway? It was a good choice. An obscure location. You just didn’t cover your tracks well enough.”

“You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“Try me.”

“After I took a cab to the airport in Boston, I picked the first flight out that I could book, which happened to be a nonstop to Miami. On the flight there, I sat next to a couple who were continuing on to Isle de Bijoux. I thought it sounded like a good plan since it wasn’t an island I’d heard of. Since I’d made it easy to track me to Miami, when I arrived there, I hired a private Cessna and paid for it via a wire transfer from a bank account Marcus had set up for me years earlier.” She grimaced. “It was the first time I’ve ever used his money. The idea always made me uncomfortable before, but I was desperate and knew I didn’t have a choice.”

“It wasn’t a bad plan on the fly,” Garrett conceded. “Unpredictability is always an advantage. If you can keep the people looking for you off balance, you can stay ahead of them with better success.”

She swallowed and began her next question hesitantly. “Could you arrange a fake passport, birth certificate, driver’s license? All that stuff?”

He yanked his head around to look at her. “It’s a little late to be thinking of all that now.”

She growled in frustration. “Yes, I understand. Believe me I get it by now. I’m a fuckup. I suck at subterfuge. I can’t lie worth a damn and I don’t have a clue how to take care of myself. Well damn it, give me some credit for trying. It’s not like I want to be some helpless twit.”

His lips twitched suspiciously and he stared ahead at the road. “I was only going to say that it’s not necessary now. I’ll make sure you have everything you need, Sarah. I’m not about to give you the tools to ditch me again.”

“It’s not like it was personal,” she muttered. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I didn’t want me to get hurt. At the time I thought you were some poor ex-military guy who’d been injured and needed a vacation. The last thing I wanted was for you to get caught up in my mess.”

“Hey I was a poor ex-military guy recovering from a wound,” he protested. “I didn’t lie about taking a bullet for my sister-in-law. It was a bonding experience for both of us.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Are you sure it wasn’t your sister-in-law who shot you? I have a feeling you’re an infuriating person to be around on a constant basis.”

He flashed her a grin that did suspicious things to her insides. “Well, now, I guess you’re going to find out, aren’t you?”

God help her but she was, and the fact that her insides lit up just a little at the thought made her smile. Then she frowned. “Oh my God. Patches! I didn’t even ask you about the cat. Is she okay? Did you take care of her?”

He looked startled by the abrupt change in topic. “Yeah, I gave her to the lady who owns the bookstore. I’m sure Patches is very happy.”

She sighed in relief. As ridiculous as it seemed to worry over a cat when she had so many other problems, the idea of the cat being alone and hungry bugged her endlessly.

“Thanks. That was a nice thing for you to do.”

He scowled as if the last thing he wanted to be considered was nice.

“Do you know where you’re going?” she asked as she stared dubiously into the night. There wasn’t much recognizable, just landscape blanketed in black. There weren’t even any stars out.

Fog hovered low to the ground and swirled around their headlights, making long-distance visibility impossible. It was spooky and only fired her already overactive imagination.

“I don’t, but the trusty GPS does.”

He tapped on the GPS mounted in the dashboard as he spoke and once again she felt like an idiot.

“I’ll just shut up now,” she sighed.

“Try to relax. I’d like to get out of Mexico as soon as possible. I hope you peed before you left.”

She chuckled and leaned back in the leather seat.

They drove for an hour, but they couldn’t have traveled very far because the road was impossible and visibility was so poor that he couldn’t drive much more than twenty-five miles per hour for the majority of the time.

She’d just closed her eyes when she heard him swear under his breath. The truck ground to a halt and she popped open her eyes to see the road blocked by what looked to be the local police, or whatever it was they called Mexican law enforcement.

Garrett reached hastily into his pocket, pulled out a small electronic device and then reached under his seat. His hand came back up empty. He glanced once her way but then focused his attention to the roadblock before them.

“Listen to me, Sarah. I want you to sit tight, and don’t say a word,” Garrett said in a low voice. “I’m outnumbered and I don’t want to do anything that puts you at risk. Which means I’m going to have to cooperate with these assholes.”

Dread filled her stomach and rose into her throat, tightening until it was hard to breathe. Cooperate? Outnumbered? This sounded bad. Really, really bad. Three police cars were parked at angles and at least seven men were standing in the road. They began approaching the SUV with automatic rifles held high. One man shouted in Spanish.

Garrett kept his hands on the steering wheel and Sarah flinched when one of the men jerked open her door. At the same time, Garrett’s door flew open and the officers motioned for them both to get out.

Sarah looked at Garrett, her heart damn near pounding out of her chest. He gave a short nod and then ducked out of the truck, careful to keep his hands up.

“No habla Español,” Garrett said when one of the men barked at him in rapid-succession Spanish.

To Sarah’s horror, the man drew his baton and rammed it into Garrett’s stomach. Another officer cracked his baton over Garrett’s head, dropping him to the ground. She screamed and tried to run for Garrett, to cover him, to somehow protect him from the unexpected attack.

She was quickly intercepted, a strong arm wrapping around her waist. The policeman who grabbed her uttered a guttural command she didn’t understand when she kicked and fought like a woman possessed. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he was telling her to cease and desist, but she wasn’t about to let them beat Garrett to death.

She twisted in his arms and jabbed her fingers in his eyes. He howled in pain and dropped her like a stone. She flew to Garrett and threw herself over his body just as one of the policemen was about to deliver another blow. She tensed, expecting the pain, but it never came.

“Goddamn it, Sarah, what the hell are you doing?” Garrett hissed.

“Saving your ass.”

“Get up,” one of the men said in strongly accented English. “Do it slowly, señor. You wouldn’t want the lady to get hurt.”

“Do as he says,” Garrett ordered. “And for God’s sake, don’t do anything to piss them off.”

Strong fingers curled around Sarah’s arm and hauled her off Garrett. She stumbled and nearly fell as she was shoved against the hood of the SUV. Garrett picked himself up off the ground and no less than three guns were pointed at him as he stood to his full height.

Two of the policemen went to the SUV and pulled out the bags from the back seat. They emptied the contents onto the ground, the first being Sarah’s clothing. Humiliation burned in her throat as the men laughed when her underwear fluttered to the ground.

Next they pulled out Garrett’s arsenal, frowning and talking to each other. They gestured at Garrett and rattled off more Spanish as they picked through all his weapons. Guns still drawn on Garrett, the police officers converged and motioned for Garrett to turn around and face the vehicle.

They began patting him down and even she was amazed by the number of weapons they pulled from his belt, pockets and pants. Panic scuttled around her stomach until she was ready to puke. This couldn’t be good.

Two of the men seized Garrett by the arms and directed him toward the backseat of the SUV. Before they stuffed him inside, they cuffed his hands behind his back and then slammed the door behind him. And suddenly their entire focus was on her and she’d never been so terrified in her life.

One wrapped his hand in her hair and yanked her sideways toward the other passenger door. She stumbled after him on tiptoe, drawn up by his grip on her hair. He opened the door and shoved her inside but didn’t cuff her as they’d done Garrett. She landed with a thud against Garrett and stayed there, preferring the comfort of his body over the alternative.

Two men got into the front while the others returned to their vehicles. The SUV fell into line between two of the police cars and they raced down the narrow road too fast for the condition of the road or the weather.

“Where are they taking us?” she asked fearfully. “They didn’t even ask us for identification or anything. They didn’t say why they were detaining us.”

“They won’t,” Garrett said grimly.

His voice was barely a whisper against her ear and she stayed in her position so they wouldn’t be overheard.

“They aren’t police,” he continued. “They’re not very discreet with their conversation.”

“But I thought you didn’t speak Spanish?”

“That’s what I told them,” he murmured.

Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her voice from shaking. “What do they want?”

“Ransom. It isn’t an uncommon practice. But listen to me, Sarah. No matter what happens, you do nothing to draw attention to yourself, do you understand me? No matter what they do to me, you aren’t to put yourself in the way.”

His voice was fierce and brooked no argument.

“Promise me,” he demanded.

She nodded, knowing it was a lie.

One of the men turned around, baton in hand and swung in Sarah’s direction. “Do not talk!” he said.

Garrett shoved her over and turned so that the blow landed on his shoulder. “Stay down and out of his way,” he ordered.

Not wanting Garrett to suffer anymore, she huddled in the seat and remained silent as they bounced recklessly down the road. It was at least another hour before they came to a stop. The headlights slashed over a hacienda-style house with an iron gate. After a moment, the gate swung open and the vehicles drove the short distance to a circular drive in front of the house.

Again, the back doors opened and Sarah found herself hauled out. Garrett fared no better, and the men took it upon themselves to land a few more blows as they herded Garrett toward the front door.

She was sick with fear and fury. He couldn’t defend himself with his hands cuffed behind his back and the bastards were taking full advantage.

“Stop it!” she screamed when at the steps, one of the men slammed his baton viciously into Garrett’s back.

Garrett’s knees buckled and he went down on one knee. He staggered back up and pinned her with his ferocious stare. “Damn it, Sarah, you promised me.”

She bit her lip to keep the sob from welling out.

She was dragged through the front room and unceremoniously shoved into a room in the back that had bars over the window and a cement floor. It was, for all practical purposes, a jail cell. A ratty mattress lined one wall and in the center was what looked to be an old bloodstain.

Oh God, what hell had they stumbled into?

A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling and the man reached up and smashed it with his baton, plunging the room into darkness. She went cold. Ice invaded her veins as he trailed his fingers up her arm.

Fear. Panic. Horrible, unending shame. Memories crowded her mind until she wanted to scream them away.

She would die before she let another man take from her what she wasn’t willing to give.

To her surprise, the man stepped away, leaving her standing in the middle of the room. Then he simply left and closed the door behind him.

She waited a few moments and flew to the door, testing the knob. It didn’t budge, not that expected it to. She stared around, her eyes adjusting somewhat to the dark. Only a narrow beam shone from underneath the door, and it wasn’t enough to make out much.

A light from outside cast just enough illumination through the window that she could make out her surroundings. Barely.

She began to pace back and forth, her mind short-circuiting with all that had happened. She didn’t understand any of it. And she was scared out of her mind for Garrett.

Where had they taken him? What were they doing? What did they want?

She heard raised voices in Spanish and then in broken English. She strained to hear. Something. Anything. She listened for Garrett but never heard him utter a word. She jumped when she heard a crash. It sounded like a chair being knocked over to the floor.

Several long minutes elapsed. Silence. No voices.

Then the low murmur of voices again. She pressed her cheek to the filthy door listening and straining.

A sound filtered through from the next room and she froze. She didn’t even breathe as a sick knot grew in her stomach. It sounded like ... Oh God, there it was again.

It was the unmistakable sound of an object hitting flesh.

It was slow and methodical. Rhythmic almost. Garrett never made a sound and the beating only got louder and more forceful. She covered her ears, trying to shut out the horrible reality. Numb to her toes, she shuffled to the far side of the room, wanting nothing to do with the bloodstained mattress.

Her eyes stung and watered as the sound echoed again, and she slid down the wall, her knees hunched to her chest. She hadn’t cried for herself. She couldn’t. But when she heard Garrett’s muffled sound of pain—the first noise he’d made at all—she bowed her head as the sobs welled in her throat. And she cried.