“Absolutely,” Shane said. “Besides, you never know. You guys might hit it off.”
Diesel looked at him, smiled, and said, “We’ll see about that.” As they pulled up to the hotel, he said, “Go ahead and check in, Shane. I’ll go switch to a different vehicle, and I’ll be right back.”
“Okay. What name is the reservation under?”
“Mine,” he said.
With that, Shane hopped out, grabbed his duffel bag, and walked inside. As soon as he was in the hotel room, he brought out his laptop and quickly opened up the Mavericks chat box and typed in the list of needs he had made. The response came back quickly.
Two hours.
Shane replied immediately. Make it an hour and fifteen. We’re short on time.
He brought up the online map of the underground tunnels they would need to access in order to get into the telecom building and figured it would take them about an hour to navigate that too. Which meant they were really pushed for time. He took a quick shower and got out just as Diesel arrived.
“The equipment should be coming in less than an hour,” Shane said. “I figure it will take us an hour to navigate the tunnels and up into the building. What we need to know is where exactly they’re holding her in there.”
“And that’s a possibility,” he said. “We’re expecting a phone call from them.”
Shane looked at him with surprise. “From the kidnappers?”
“Yes.” Diesel checked his watch and said, “In about five minutes.”
“Good, let’s get set up for that then.”
Shelly Berkshire glared at her kidnappers. “He won’t come. You know that, right?”
They ignored her, just like they had ignored her every other time that she’d brought it up. She’d been initially terrified, but, as soon as she realized they were after Shane, her anger grew. Of course their comment about her being his doxy set it aflame.
She hoped Shane didn’t come. It seemed like he was always bailing her out of these things. Although she hadn’t done a single thing to bring this one on, so it wasn’t her fault. She figured somebody hated him already, and they were using her for bait somehow. She watched the clock, knowing a phone call was supposed to happen. And she would probably speak, would be proof of life.
If she knew anything about Shane, he would make sure she was okay. The problem was, she needed to have some message ready in order to give him some help. Even if they got into the building somehow, it was massive, and she couldn’t tell him a whole lot, not with her kidnappers listening in.
She had thought about it long and hard, thinking about where they’d been all their life and how she’d ended up in this stupid scenario. She knew the job offer had been too good to believe. Although nobody would have expected her boss to take a bullet between the eyes, as these guys came through the building. Assholes. She didn’t know who else or how many other people had been killed in the process, but what was driving her nuts was why they had chosen this route to get her. And it drove her crazy. Not only was she a sitting duck and completely in the middle of this but all of it was done to hurt Shane. And that was horrible. He was her best friend and had been since forever.
Just then the two gunmen got up, synced their watches, and made a phone call to somebody else.
Her heart slammed in her chest. This was it. Then they came over and, grabbing her under each arm, half-lifted and half-carried her to the boardroom, sitting off to the right of this room. It was a conference room with just tables and chairs. A laptop was brought up, which she kept her eyes on, before she realized that a video was on a larger screen up in the front. And, sure enough, there was Shane. She feasted on his familiar face and gave him a teary smile in return.
“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly.
She nodded; her heart warmed that he would actually come. “You shouldn’t have come. You know that, right?”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “If our positions were reversed—”
“I’d leave you in the mess you made,” she said.
He burst out laughing, until the laptop was jerked away from her face.
“Now that you know she’s alive,” the gunman said, “we want you here, and we want you here in the next forty minutes.
“I can’t make that,” he said. “Make it two hours. That’s the soonest I can get there. I’m sure you’ve already figured out that I’ve just now landed.”
“Forty minutes should be enough time.”
“No way,” he said, “so it’s two hours or nothing.”
“Well, maybe it’ll be nothing then,” the one man snarled. He slammed Shelly’s head into view again. “We don’t have to wait for you to hurt this one.”
“Well, I suggest you don’t,” Shane said, his voice turning hard. “Even the slightest bruise on her skin, and I’ll make sure it’s ten times worse on whoever gave it to her.”
The man laughed. “We don’t care what you think you’ll do. We just want you here.”
“Got it,” he said. “Two hours.” He looked back at her and asked, “Shelly, are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said, then she took a deep breath. “Remember back at Smithville?”
She didn’t get a chance to finish. Her head was jerked off to the side again, and a hand clapped over her mouth.
“That’s all she says,” the man growled. “Now hurry up and get here.” And, with that, the screen went black. As soon as it did, he turned and smacked her hard across the face.
She cried out at the stinging blow that sent her head snapping to the side.
“I don’t know what you were trying to do,” he said, “but no more tricks. I mean it.”
She didn’t say anything, her head still ringing from the pain. She wanted to slap him back even harder. She had some self-defense skills, but she was up against at least two of them, if not four, the others off somewhere else, and they were each very well-armed, and she wasn’t. She wasn’t averse to taking a chance if there was any hope, but these guys looked to not give a damn if they killed her or not. “You still haven’t explained why you’re doing this,” she murmured.
“Don’t have to explain anything,” he snapped.
She nodded. “No, that’s true,” she said. “You don’t, but it would sure make it easier for me to understand what’s going on if you would. That’s all.”
“He did something wrong. He needs to pay for it,” the other man said, and it was the first time she had heard him speak.
She looked at him in surprise. “He did?”
He looked at her, nodded, and said, “You seem surprised.”
“I’ve never known him to hurt anybody,” she said quietly. “He’s the opposite.”
“Not in this instance,” he said.
“Shut up now,” the leader said, as he stood and looked at the other two. “Joe and Pete, you guys stay here, and don’t let her say another word. Not one.” They just nodded and took up positions in chairs near her.
Joe and Pete, huh? She looked at the leader. “Who are you?” she asked. “Shouldn’t I at least know who orchestrated the last few hours of my life?”