Nobody called out when those guys picked her up and tossed her into the van either. Though she clearly recalled people on the sidewalk yards from her, nobody had screamed.
Not even her. Her kidnappers relied on the shock factor to shut her up, and it did. But if she could scream her fucking head off right now, she would.
She tested her voice, but all she could manage was a humming noise. Not enough to drive her captors crazy unless they hated show tunes. She could conjure a mean Oklahoma! if she tried hard enough.
Some type of plastic bound her wrists, not the rope she expected. The whir of the tires suggested a high rate of speed, which probably put her on an interstate. No sounds came from the front of the van, and if her kidnappers spoke, she couldn’t make out words in the closed-off back.
Tears surfaced again. Oh my boys.
She didn’t want to think about them going on without a mother. A single mom and her children shared a sacred bond—and she refused to let it be severed.
That brought her thoughts to the whys of her kidnapping. This was no random act. She’d been in broad daylight, on a crowded street, and the fact that they’d swept her up so easily told her that they’d been studying her. They knew she ran. They watched her home. And she’d pissed them off in some way.
Her mind turned to Baynard’s case and all the intel she’d been digging through in order to clear his name. The last being the bank account.
Could that be the trigger? She’d logged into a place with locked accounts, possibly with illegal transactions?
She opened her eyes—they’d been shut for a long time—and saw only blackness of the hood before her. Wooziness struck again, and her stomach pitched.
They’d bashed her over the head, and she had a concussion. Mild but still enough to make her want to vomit. And vomiting in this hood with the tape around her mouth would be a very bad idea.
Breathing shallowly, she counted to one hundred and then again in French. The van showed no signs of slowing. They drove in a straight path without making turns. Definitely interstate.
What felt like hours later but might have only been minutes, the van jerked, jostling her on the floor and causing her head to glance off the side of the wall again. Were they getting off an exit? The driver braked—she pitched to the side and engaged her ab muscles to hold herself upright. The last thing she wanted to do was lie helpless on her side without the use of her hands or feet.
The van stopped. Her heart tripped. Something warm and hot trickled down her leg. For a while now, she’d felt blood—smelled the copper tang of it too. But she had no way of knowing how bad her injury was. A scrape or a gash slowly trickling her life’s blood away?
Alex.
Nick.
The boys in Christmas PJs, eyes lighting up at the sight of their new bikes beside the tree.
She had to keep going. For them.
The hollow nothingness in the back of the van muffled the sound of men talking. One said something she couldn’t make out. Then they moved to the side. A moment later, she heard fluid rushing into the gas tank.
“An hour from the coast and we just had to stop for gas. Why didn’t you fill up before, you idiot?”
“Get off my back.”
Her heart slammed so hard against her ribs she thought it possible that they could hear it. This might also be her only chance to get someone else to hear her—and free her.
She waited until they finished pumping gas. As soon as they walked away, she would scream as loud as she could with her mouth gagged and kick her feet off the floor too.
Rose waited. The pump quit running. She lifted her feet to start making noise.
“Hurry the fuck up, would ya? We’re going to miss putting her on the ship.”
Her eyes flew open. Though she could see nothing, she clearly envisioned herself being loaded onto a ship with hundreds of other kidnapped women, bound for some South American country to be sold into slavery—or worse, the sex trade.
Oh God. She needed to get out of here.
She let loose, kicking and thrashing, screaming deep in her throat, but the hood and her closed mouth muffled the noise.
“Get the fuck in the van,” one of the guys told the other.
Seconds later, she pitched across the floor, head slamming once again. Her stomach tossed.
Keep your wits, Kilbourn. You raised twin boys alone. You work with some of the toughest motherfuckers in the world.
When she pushed off the van floor, she managed to sit upright again and leaned weakly against the side. The van hit top speed once more, bound for the coast and a ship they planned to load her on.
As if her mind refused to allow reality in, the scents of her father’s garden filled her head. Jasmine and too many other flowers to name rising up in the night air and her turning into Oz’s arms.
The first time she saw him he’d come to the house to deliver a confidential letter to her father. One look at the broad-shouldered, trim-waisted man and she’d been addicted. Then she’d lost herself in the dark depths of his eyes.
Nobody had to tell her that one of her father’s men was off-limits. But that didn’t stop her from making an appearance in a bikini the next time he delivered a message. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he skated his gaze down over the strings holding her curves in.
Then at a Labor Day barbecue, Oz had arrived with transport to take her father away to some threat. Rose stood in the living room talking to Oz while her father said goodbye to his guests and changed out of his Hawaiian shirt and into uniform. She’d only spoken to Oz a few minutes, but every word they exchanged stamped itself on her soul.
The garden party, though…the moment she’d stepped into his arms and he captured her mouth in a long, deep kiss to end all kisses for her… She could still feel the scruff of his five o’clock shadow on her sensitive skin and his callused fingers working over her breasts, belly, down between her legs and then burrowed deep inside her.
After they shared the most precious moments of her life, Oz reached into her chest and ripped out her heart.
“I don’t want this to come back on me, Rose. And you’re young.”
“What does that mean? I won’t tell my father. We can see each other—”
He shook his head. “I don’t have room in my life for more. This night with you was amazing, and I’ll remember it always because you were so perfect. But the moment is for right now. It stays here and doesn’t follow us through life.”
Stupid tears gathered in her eyes, and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out.
Oz stepped close and cradled her face in his big palms. Looking into her eyes, he stomped on the last shred of hope she had of ever being with this man. “I do not want a wife or kids—ever. You said you’re on the pill, and I believe you…but if something comes of this, I trust you’ll take care of it.”
Then he kissed her between the eyes and left her in the garden, heartbroken and still aching from his touch.
Over the years, Rose had tried to hate him for it. But he’d been right. She needed to grow and become her own woman. And he never would have been there for her or their sons.
A couple years after the boys were born, she searched for Oswald Morgon. When she located his name on a list of deployed in Iraq, a new kind of appreciation for the man settled in her heart. Later, she knew the word for it—pride.