KIDNAPPED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (8 page)

Sami rummaged through the box again, retrieving several more long sleeved shirts. “No. No other coat in here.”

“What’s that back there?” He pointed into the closet, a gray sleeve stuck out of the back.

Standing, Sami reached for the item. Her heart beat faster. She pulled the Scarlet trimmed gray team jacket out and stared at it. She’d forgotten she still had this. Her brother Luke had bought the Ohio State jacket for Aimee the year she was diagnosed with cancer. He’d bought it too big so she could grow into it. Luke was a big believer in challenging people, giving them goals to live up to. The sad thing was this was one challenge her little daughter couldn’t meet, no matter how much she’d wanted to.

Sami waited for the pain to hit her. It didn’t. Only a sweet remembrance of how happy Aimee had been when she opened the box that Christmas. She never got to wear it. Tears sprang into Sami’s eyes for the little life that had ended much too soon.

“Samantha?”

Startled, Sami blinked hard at the tears, then held the jacket up. “This should fit him, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I do.” He gave her a quizzical look as she handed it to him.

“Did you get a thermometer? I’d like to know just how high Nicky’s temp is before that Tylenol kicks in.” She hurried past him.  Suddenly feeling faint, she needed to escape the closet. She needed to do something. She needed air.

“It’s in the bag on the dresser.” He called after her.

In the bedroom, Sami stooped over and fought to take deep breaths.
Slow it down. You can handle this.
She concentrated hard and willed her breathing to return to normal. Her vision cleared.

On the dresser, she found the thermometer right where Jake said it would be. Slipping it in under Nicky’s arm, she sat beside him. Waves of memories flooded her senses, finding out she was pregnant with Aimee; giving birth after the normal twelve hours for a first pregnancy; changing her daughter’s diapers while the little baby cooed and grinned at her; the day in the doctor’s office when he told her he suspected Aimee might have leukemia.

Pictures and scenes of her life she’d shoved into the dark corners of her memories, so she could function without the pain. Tonight the images rolled past her like the black and white images of a silent movie, almost as if she viewed someone else’s life. Perhaps she did. The woman who’d experienced those things first hand had ceased to exist four years ago. Until last night when Jake forced himself and Nicky into her life, Sami Edgars hadn’t lived since the day Aimee was taken from her.

Sami glanced at her scrub jacket crumpled on the floor where she’d dropped it the night before. Inside its pocket lay the duel sleeping pill prescriptions she’d conned from the docs at work. Her need for them now gone. Her will to live snapped back into place by her own brush with mortality.

A noise from the doorway thankfully brought her to the present.

“We need to leave, Samantha.” Jake stood watching her. Wearing the canvas field coat her brother left at her apartment for emergencies open in front and the duffel bag slung over one shoulder, he looked like a model right out of a hunting magazine.

The very masculine way he leaned against the door jam, hands in his pockets, relaxed with one leg crossed in front of the other, pulled his jeans tight and accented his thighs. Her eyes traveled up over his hard body. Even in the loose, casual shirt and jacket, she knew how firm and conditioned his body was. She’d memorized every inch when he’d landed on her last night, then held her this morning.

Her body heated with the memory. No longer fearing he meant to kill her, this attraction to him scared her almost as much.

Forcing herself to concentrate, she removed the thermometer from under Nicky’s arm. “One hundred and two, point eight. No wonder he feels so sick.” She looked at Jake. “No way we can get him some antibiotics?”

Jake simply shook his head. “Do you need some help getting him dressed to go?”

“No. I can manage it.”

“Okay.” He laid the jacket on the corner of the bed. Striding down the hall, he left her alone to dress Nicky.

Sami lifted the pale blue cambric shirt, gently pushing first one of Nicky’s arms then the other into the sleeves. Remembering the pair of khaki pants her nephew left the last time he went swimming at her apartment, she laid Nicky back against the pillows. She searched through her dresser, finding the pants in the bottom drawer. She had just slipped the jacket on Nicky when Jake returned. He thrust a piece of paper into his jeans pocket as he came into the room.

“Here, let me carry him,” he said as she attempted to lift the listless boy.

“What? No handcuffs? No ropes to bind me this time?”

He flashed her a mischievous look. “Only if you want them.”

Sami ignored him as she folded Nicky’s jeans. She thrust them into the duffel with the other clothes. She noted Jake had packed the bandage supplies, the last few packages of suture, more rubbing alcohol and peroxide, as well as the Tylenol. The man liked to be prepared. She added the thermometer.

“Ready?” Watching her, he held Nicky’s limp body easily.

“Yes.” She threw on her coat and started to follow him, then stopped. Running to her bedroom, she grabbed a quilt off the chair in the corner. She tucked it under her arm and snatched her purse on the way through the kitchen. Then she climbed into the Suburban’s passenger seat. Jake laid Nicky on her lap, so the little boy’s head rested on her shoulder. Sami tucked the quilt around him.

Jake climbed into the driver’s side. He pushed the button for the garage door opener, then slowly pulled the big vehicle out into the late autumn day.

The steel grey skies did indeed predict a snow front coming into the area. Sami hoped she wouldn’t get caught driving on icy roads on her way home.

The rural scenery turned more urban as they headed into the city limits of Columbus. For the last twelve years she’d lived here attending college at Ohio State to get her nursing degree, then as a married wife and mother. The city had grown a lot in that time. Like a sprawling giant, it slowly engulfed the surrounding towns and suburbs, then outlying farms as even the suburbs burst at the seams with yuppies during the eighties and nineties.

“Who did that jacket belong to, the one Nicky is wearing?” Jake’s question drew her out of her reverie.

“Why do you ask?” A dull ache began around her heart. It had been years since she talked about Aimee with someone else.

He glanced at her, then looked at the road ahead. “You seemed a little upset about finding it in the closet. I just thought you might want to talk about it.”

“My brother bought the jacket for my daughter several years ago.”

“You have a daughter?” Jake glanced at her. Surprise registered on his face.

Sami bit her upper lip for a second. “Had. I had a daughter.”

“Had?” He laid his hand on hers where it clutched the quilt tightly. “What happened to her?”

“She died from pneumonia complicated by her leukemia four years ago.”

“Oh, man. I’m sorry to hear that.” He squeezed her hand.

Sami blinked at the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. In one two-minute conversation, this virtual stranger had given her more comfort and compassion than her ex-husband had managed in all the years during and after Aimee’s illness.

“Where are you meeting your boss?” She needed to change the subject quickly, before she embarrassed herself by dissolving into a flood of self-pitying tears.

Jake squeezed her hand once more, signaling he understood her desire not to continue the topic of Aimee. He lifted his hand, then stretched his arm over the back of the front seat. “We’re meeting my captain at the farmers market.”

“There will be lots of people there on a Saturday afternoon,” she said as he turned the car onto the freeway.

“Yep. I wanted a crowd around. I figure the bad guys will be less likely to try and kidnap Nicky with thousands of witnesses.”

“The Kreshnins?”

A shocked look on Jake’s face rewarded her and she almost laughed. In the heavier city traffic he had to look back and forth from the road to her several times while trying to control the car on the freeway.

“How did you know about the Kreshnins?”

“Nicky mumbled the name in his sleep while you were away. I just put two and two together.”

He sighed, turning onto the exit for the downtown farmers market. “I wish you didn’t know anything about this. Until you are in a safe place the more you know, the more danger you are in. The wanted poster on the news report called me a kidnapper. It was true. Only I didn’t kidnap Nicky. I kidnapped you. That might’ve been enough to protect you, as long as you didn’t know anything.”

“And it still may. Technically, I’m still your prisoner.”

Their eyes met and held. Electricity filled the Suburban’s closed confines for a moment. Then Jake pulled into the market place’s parking lot.

“Okay. I’m supposed to take Nicky inside.” He left the car idling in park and walked around the car to open the passenger side. He slung the duffel onto his shoulder, then scooped Nicky into his arms. “Listen carefully, Samantha. Once I’m inside, I want you to head to your place, pack a bag and drive directly to Cincinnati to your brother, the cop. Don’t stop anywhere on the way. I have his number in my pocket. Once Nicky and I are safe, I’ll call and explain to him the danger you’re in. He can keep you safe until I get this mess all cleaned up. Okay?”

“You don’t seriously think I need protection, do you?” she asked as she slid into the driver’s seat, adjusting the seat forward for her shorter legs.

“Yes, I do.” He grabbed her wrist as she fastened the seat belt in place. “Promise me.

Sami studied him for a moment. Concern etched his rugged features. He actually cared what happened to her. Oddly, her heart skipped a beat at the knowledge. “Okay. I promise.”

The corners of his lips lifted in a half smile. “I’m sorry if I hurt you in any way. It would’ve been nice to meet you under other circumstances.”

“You didn’t really bruise anything more than my ego.” She gave him a rueful smile. “Now get Nicky out of this cool weather.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sami sat behind the wheel, watching Jake swagger with Nicky in his arms toward the market’s front door. A few soft white flakes fell on the windshield. She sighed with regret. In one day, he’d filled her dull life with more excitement than she’d had in the past ten years combined. She’d never see either the man or boy again.

In front of him, the door to the market flew open. A balding man in jeans and a heavy sports-type wind-breaker, hurried out. He waived frantically at Jake.

Jake halted.

The man yelled something.

Suddenly, several men ran out behind the older man. Without any warning, they took police stances, firing their weapons at Jake and the man. Jake turned, sprinting as fast as he could toward her.

In morbid fascination, fingers glued to the steering wheel, Sami watched as the balding man fell in slow motion. He sank to his knees. His hands flew upwards.  He tipped forward like a felled tree in the forest. Finally, he sprawled, face down on the pavement.

The door to the suburban flew open. Jake jumped in, clutching Nicky tightly to him.

“Get us out of here, Samantha!”

Sami snapped to action at his orders. She threw the car in reverse. Gunning the engine, they flew backward. She laid on the horn hard. Innocent pedestrians in the path behind them scattered out of the way like startled pigeons at a public monument.

The men from the market ran toward them. Car windows around them shattered. Bystanders dove for cover behind cars and light poles.

She maneuvered the car to the road entrance, turned the wheel sharply and backed into traffic. Ignoring the screeching tires and blaring horns of the other motorists around them, she slammed the car into first, and sped down the road.

“They killed him!” she yelled at Jake as she headed back to her house.

“Damn it, don’t you think I know that?”

“They were police. You said you were police.” She glanced at him, then turned onto the freeway. She let her foot lay heavily on the gas, maneuvering past cars and trucks. “Why would they kill him?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know who, so don’t ask me that, either.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Slow down, Samantha. We don’t want to draw the highway patrol’s attention.”

“What are we going to do?” She eased off the gas, panting from the fear and Adrenaline combination.

“Well, going to your house or your brother’s is out of the question now.”

Sami glanced at him. “Why?”

“Because I am sure they have your license plate number now, or at least enough to identify you.” He leaned against the car door, giving her a worried look. “Like it or not, you’re going to be named as my accomplice.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“Your men missed, Petrov.” The man’s voice sounded abrupt and clipped even for him.

“We could not help that your FBI captain gave us away. But he will no longer be around to get in our way, no?”

“Don’t sound so pleased with yourself, Petrov. Thanks to your little gun battle we now have a dead agent on our hands. I don’t know how I can keep a lid on the investigation into a the killing of a federal agent.”

A harsh laugh sounded on the line’s other end. “Ah, but you will block any investigations, my friend. Convince them that Carlisle shot the other agent. You have as much to lose as I do if that little brat tells what he knows.”

The hairs on the back of the man’s neck slowly stood at attention. The Russian’s threat hit close to home. He had quite a bit to lose should his involvement become known.

The day he’d joined forces with Petrov, his brother, and their band of exiled Russian thugs, he’d known the risks were high. He glanced at the Rolex on his arm, a symbol of the wealth he’d amassed over and above his trust fund. Until this fiasco with the kid and Carlisle, the benefits had far outweighed the risks.

Petrov might have the meanness of his Mongol ancestors, but he’d never underestimated the giant Russian’s intelligence or ruthlessness.  Only a fool would turn his back on the Kosak.