Express Male

The man released the safety on his weapon with a deft flick of his thumb and sharpened his aim.

Of course, there was a first time for everything.

“Please,” she said, spreading her fingers in entreaty. “There’s got to be some way to get this all straightened out without anyone getting hurt. Please,” she said again, even more solicitously this time.

“Give me the manuscript,” the man said. “Hold it out with one hand, very slowly. And don’t try anything funny, Lila. Because I will shoot you if I have to.”

Marnie did as he asked, keeping one hand airborne as she gripped the envelope with the other and very carefully extended it toward him. Cautiously, he accepted it from her, his gaze never leaving hers, as if it was more important for him to watch her eyes than it was to watch her hands.

“Which car is the one you’ve been driving?” he asked as he tucked the envelope under one arm, still holding the gun steady. Still not removing his eyes from hers.

She found the phrasing of the question peculiar. He hadn’t asked which car was hers, but which one she’d been driving. As if he assumed she didn’t own the car but was only using it. Still, if he was saying anything at all about her car, it was only because he intended to use it. And that couldn’t be a good thing. Unless he used it by himself. Which was probably asking too much.

Marnie closed her eyes, surrendering to the inevitable. “The one behind me is mine,” she said. “The yellow Volkswagen Beetle.”

“Turn around, and walk slowly toward it,” the man told her, “keeping your hands where I can see them at all times.”

“Oh, please,” Marnie said, unable to help herself. “You can’t possibly think I’m any threat to you.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Oh, sure. You’re harmless, Lila. Everyone knows that. Like that guy in Zagreb. The one you put in a coma a few years ago? The one who’s still in a coma? He’d definitely agree that you’re as gentle as a lamb.”

Yeah, Marnie thought, this Lila for sure needed to hang out with some different people. Not to mention find some new hobbies.

“Turn around,” he said again, his voice steely now.

“And walk to your car. And don’t try anything funny.”

Oh, gosh, no. She wouldn’t try anything funny. That would be so inappropriate in a situation like this.

She did as he asked, making her way carefully to her car with both arms awkwardly extended, constantly aware of his eyes—and his gun—on her back. When she arrived at the driver’s-side door, however, she remembered she’d dropped her keys when the second man grabbed her. She started to say something about that when she heard the merry chirp-chirp of the key fob unlocking the doors. Braving a look over her shoulder, she saw faux Randy standing a few feet away, her keys in his hand. Evidently he’d seen them on the ground and scooped them up, but she sure couldn’t have said when. He had to have moved awfully silently and awfully quickly to do that.

Gee, color her suspicious, but if he kept this up, she was going to start thinking he wasn’t a mall security guard at all.

“Get in,” he said. “Put your hands on the steering wheel and keep them there.”

She did as he instructed, then watched as he rounded the front of her car, his eyes never leaving hers. He honestly seemed to be afraid that she might overpower him. Either this Lila really was a very dangerous woman, or faux Randy was the lamest excuse for a man in the world. As much as Marnie wanted to cling to that second theory, she figured the first one was more accurate. Which meant three men tonight had mistaken her for a very dangerous woman. Her. Marnie Lundy. Who shrieked at the sight of an unexpected dust bunny.

The tiny car shrank to microscopic when faux Randy folded his big frame into the passenger seat, accomplishing the feat with a swiftness and economy of movement that belied his size, his gun never straying from Marnie’s midsection. Once inside, he slammed the door shut and thumbed the locks into place, then dangled her keys from his fingers. When she reached for them, he snatched them back. Her gaze flew to his in silent question.

“I’m going to tell you where to drive,” he said. “And you’re going to follow my directions. You will not exceed the speed limit. You will not swerve off the road. You will not try to attract the attention of another driver. If you do, you’ll be sorry.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

Fear was creeping back in again, now that she realized just how little chance there was for escape. She was well and truly alone with him, helpless against him. She might be able to run once they reached their destination, but unless she could outwit him, there was no way she could get away. He was bigger, stronger, faster than she. He had clearly been trained for things she would never be able to master. He could easily overpower her. If he wanted to.

“How much gas do you have?” he asked.

“I filled up on the way to work,” she told him reluctantly. And damn her for not being one of those people who could drive a car until it was down to fumes. She couldn’t let the tank get below half before she started worrying.

“We shouldn’t have any problems then.”

Oh, yeah, speak for yourself, why don’t you? Aloud, she only asked, “Where are you taking me?”

He studied her in silence for a moment, as if he were trying to decide how much to tell her. “It’s one of the few places we have that you don’t know about,” he finally said. “And it’s not far from where we are right now.”

He extended the keys toward her again, and Marnie reached for them gingerly. Although he allowed her to wrap her fingers around them this time, he still didn’t release them.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Buckle your seat belt,” he told her. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?”

She managed to refrain from rolling her eyes but did as he said, reassuring herself that she wasn’t following his instructions this time because she would have buckled up anyway. Nyah, nyah, nyah. Only then did he relinquish her keys. He lowered the gun so it couldn’t be seen by other drivers, but pressed it against her thigh. She guessed that that was because, if she tried anything, he could shoot her in the leg, disabling her without killing her. That would prevent her from crashing the car, and make it possible for him to escape with his own life—if not hers.

As she went to insert the key into the ignition, she realized her purse, a whimsical little Mary Frances number decorated with buttons and ribbons and lace in varying shades of blue—she’d spent way too much on it, even with her store discount, but she hadn’t been able to resist—was still swinging from her elbow. She turned and straightened her arm to let it slide down over her wrist, only to have her wrist seized by her companion, who gripped it with firm fingers.

“Problem, Lila?” he asked as he jerked her hand back up between both their bodies.

“I just wanted to put my purse in the backseat,” she said.

He smiled grimly. “I’ll do it for you.”

“Thank you,” she bit out.

“But not before seeing what you have inside.”

Of course.

Still pressing the gun against her thigh, he released her wrist, and Marnie held her arm still as he guided the purse carefully over her hand. She winced as she watched him manhandle it, turning it over and over in his big brawny fist, having not a care for any of the intricate detailing. Watching him treat the ultrafeminine accessory so carelessly hammered home how little trouble he would have mistreating her, too.

“How the hell do you open this thing?” he demanded.

“That beaded flower on the side facing away from you has a snap beneath it,” she told him.

He found the part she was talking about and unfastened it, but his big hand barely fit inside the little purse, so he turned it upside down and emptied the contents into his lap. One by one, he inspected each item before replacing it, starting with the tube of lipstick, then the tin of mints, then her hanky and so on. He was methodical and dispassionate in his task, even handled her emergency tampon with complete indifference. He saved her leather card case for last, flipping it open to extract one-handed her Visa card, her AAA card, her health insurance card and her driver’s license, studying each in turn.

“These are excellent forgeries,” he told her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they were the real thing.” He glanced up to look at her. “But we weren’t the ones who made them. Who did?”

Marnie inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “Well, that first came from the bank when I opened my Visa account. The second came from triple-A. That third was from my insurer and the fourth is from the Ohio DMV.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Very funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “They’re not forgeries.”

Without returning the cards to the case, he dropped all of them into her purse and snapped it shut. “Start the car,” he said as he tossed it into the back without bothering to see where it landed.

Damn men, anyway, Marnie thought as she watched him do it. They had no clue as to the importance of the ideal accessory.

“Which way am I supposed to go?” she asked when the little car purred to life.

“Use the mall’s north exit,” he told her.

His directions after that were clipped, concise and to the point. After ten minutes of driving, they were out of the Cleveland suburbs. Another fifteen, and they were crossing the county line, headed west on Interstate 90 toward any number of small towns that doubled as weekend retreats on Lake Erie. Obviously “not far” was a relative term to him, because it was nearly another hour before they finally reached their destination. During that time, he spoke scarcely a word to her—not that Marnie was all that fired up to get to know him better—and she kept her own thoughts to herself. But when he finally instructed her to pull the car to a halt, throw it into Park and cut the engine, she saw that they had arrived at—

Oh. An isolated cabin in the woods. Why had she not seen this coming from a mile away?

“Get out,” he told her. Then he repeated what seemed to be his mantra. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marnie waited for the fear to roar up again, but she felt only resolve now. Exiting the car, she inhaled the pungent aroma of fresh evergreen, and through a break in the trees, she could just make out the glitter of moonlight on water. But not Lake Erie. They’d left the interstate for a county road some miles back and headed east, away from the lake. This must be a small tributary that fed into it. Had she been arriving here for a weekend getaway, she would have been charmed by her surroundings. In the moonlit darkness, she saw that the cottage was of the faux-rustic variety—perfect for a guy like faux Randy—built to look like a log cabin but obviously fairly new. It was enchanting, really.

How comforting to realize she’d enjoy such a cozy atmosphere during the last hours of her life.

Marnie still didn’t know what to do. She could try to run, but she didn’t relish the idea of being in the woods alone at night. Who knew how far it was to another cabin, or if there even was another cabin nearby? Besides, her captor would probably tackle her—or shoot her—before she even made it to the tree line. She didn’t want to go inside the house, since that would make escape even more difficult if not downright impossible, but there might be something inside she could use for a weapon….

The matter was taken out of her hands when faux Randy circled the front of the car and wrapped the fingers of his free hand around her upper arm. “Walk,” he said, jabbing the barrel of his gun into her ribs.

Well, okay. If he insisted.

He had the manuscript tucked beneath his arm as he guided her forward. Marnie made it up the three stairs of the front porch without tripping, but her entire body was racked with trembling by the time they reached the front door. Something cold and slimy had settled in the pit of her stomach, and she wanted to throw up. Faux Randy released her arm long enough to fish a new set of keys out of his trouser pocket, but his grip on the gun never wavered as he unlocked the front door and pushed it open. He dragged her over the threshold behind him and shut the door again, turning a single dead bolt with an ominous thump before flipping a wall switch to turn on the lights.

In stark contrast to the ugliness of her situation, the cabin itself was quite pleasant. Amber light radiated from a single lamp in the corner, warming pine-paneled walls that housed pencil sketches of the wilderness. The furniture was big and boxy, looking hand hewn of more pine, and upholstered with blankets of Native American design. The floor was dotted with wool rugs of a similar pattern, the hardwood beneath them gleaming. A large creek stone fireplace took up most of one wall, shelves crammed full of books taking up the rest of it. Opposite her was a row of windows that looked out onto darkness, but which doubtless offered a magnificent view of the woods or water during the day. The whole place was tidy and spotless, as if it had just recently been cleaned. Had she not been here as a prisoner, Marnie would have found it charming.

“That way,” her captor said, tilting his head toward a doorway that led to a darkened room.

She swallowed with some difficulty, but walked carefully in that direction. Her captor, naturally, followed close behind.

“There’s a light switch on the wall to your left,” he told her. “Turn it on.”

Again, she did as she was instructed, her heart sinking when she saw the room was, as she had feared, a bedroom. Again, the decor was cozy and warm, the pine walls and floor continuing into this room from the other, the pencil sketches replaced by watercolor renditions of lake and sky. She felt his hand on her back, his fingers splaying wide between her shoulder blades and she instinctively jerked away. But he caught her easily, circling her upper arm with strong fingers. He tugged her back toward himself and propelled both their bodies forward, kicking the bedroom door closed behind them. He pushed her again, toward the bed, and nausea rolled into her belly.

Her mind raced to recall every self-defense trick she’d ever read in Glamour magazine and could only remember two: Jab him in the eyes with your keys or stomp on his instep with your spike heel. But he’d taken her keys from her and she wasn’t going to do much damage with a pair of knockoff Birkenstocks. Even scratching him would be impossible. She had been a nail-biter since childhood.

When he was undressing, she told herself, that was when she’d make her move. When his pants were down around his ankles, she’d run. Or she’d grab Mr. Happy and make him very unhappy indeed. Something. Anything. The moment his guard was down, she would figure out how best to hurt him. And then she would run like hell.

Little by little, they drew nearer the bed, with him behind her, slowly urging her forward. Closer now…closer…three more steps…two…almost there…one more step…

He walked right past the bed, heading toward another room off the bedroom.

Oh. Well that kind of threw off her plan of attack. Now what?

He instructed her to flip on that light, too, and when she did, Marnie saw a bathroom like any other, except that there was more pine instead of tile, and no bathtub. In place of one was an incongruously modern-looking shower stall in the corner, covered on two sides with frosted glass.

“Get in the shower,” he told her.

Oooh. He was one of those weirdos who had an obsession with cleanliness. That could work for her, she thought. It could. If she could just…If she could just…Well. If she could just get her brain to stop jumping around long enough for her to make sense of it.

“I really don’t think I need a shower right now,” she said. “I took one this morning, and honestly, if I could just wash my face, that would really be all I—”

He interrupted her by uttering a long, exasperated sound. He followed it with a very perturbed, “Just get in the damned shower, Lila.”

She narrowed her eyes at him as understanding began to dawn. Like a good, solid blow to the back of the head. “You mean, get in it with my clothes on?”

He actually had the nerve to roll his eyes and look at her as if she were an idiot. “Get. In. The. Shower. Now.”

She made a face at him. “Oh. Kay.” Just for that, she would leave her clothes on.

A half-dozen steps brought her to the shower door, which she carefully pulled open. Inside, she saw…a shower stall. Clean. Dry. Empty. On one shelf was lined up an assortment of toiletries, no two brands the same. Someone must be a coupon shopper. Marnie knew that because she never had the same brands in her house, either. There wasn’t a shower smell to the stall, though, neither soapy nor mildewy, and she found that odd. It didn’t even smell of disinfectant, as if it had just been cleaned. It didn’t smell like anything.

She was about to turn around, to ask faux Randy what she was supposed to do next, but he was climbing into the shower stall right behind her, something that made the words get stuck in her throat. She opened her mouth to scream—well, it was as good a reaction as any—but he reached beyond her, pointing what she thought was her car-key fob at the soap holder.

Okay, now that was just plain weird.

Weirder still was the fact that one of the plastic shower walls suddenly went sliding to the left, revealing a cubby on the other side. The walls of the cubby were lined with metal, something that looked like brushed aluminum, and when she looked to the left, she saw a flight of stairs heading down. She closed her eyes for a second then opened them. Nope, it was definitely not a hallucination. Sometimes a shower stall wasn’t a shower stall. What this one was, though…

“Go on,” faux Randy said from behind her.

“Go where?” she asked.

“Down the stairs.”

She was going to jokingly ask him if that was where he kept his torture chamber, but was afraid it might not be a joke at all. He must have sensed she was about to refuse—and she was—because she felt the gun press into her back again. She sighed and stepped cautiously into the metal cubby and looked down the stairs. There were about fifty or sixty of them, emptying into a well-lit hallway below. Whatever was down there, faux Randy hadn’t built it by himself. It was too perfect a construction for it to have been completed without some kind of sophisticated technology.

“What’s down there?” Marnie asked, really, really hoping he didn’t reply, My torture chamber.

“Lots of people who have been looking for you,” he said.

“Lots of people?” she echoed, puzzled. That actually might be good. Unless they were all like faux Randy.

He nodded. “Lots of people. And lucky you, Lila. One or two of them might even be happy to see you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

NOAH TENNANT TUCKED Philosopher’s manuscript under one arm and pressed the gun more insistently into Lila’s back. He honestly wasn’t sure which of the two was the bigger prize. Hell, he’d been that close to collaring Sorcerer tonight, too, and had only let the other man escape after making the split-second decision that Lila was worth more. Had Noah run after Sorcerer, she would have disappeared back into the netherworld where she’d been living undetected for the past five months. And they couldn’t have that.

Sorcerer had a habit of popping up again from time to time. Not so Lila. When she dug in, she stayed there. Noah had decided to seize the moment and grab her now, because he might not have another chance. Frankly, he was surprised she hadn’t used that split second to make her own escape. Or, even more characteristic of her, clean his clock and then make her escape. Lila Moreau could do a lot of damage in a split second. Nobody knew that better than Noah.

Still, had he succeeded in bringing in her, the manuscript and Sorcerer, he would have been promoted to the position of All Powerful Emperor of Everything Without Exception So There. And that would have looked great on a résumé.

“I’m not Lila,” Lila said. Again. “There’s been some terrible mixup somewhere. My name is Marnie. Marnie Lundy.” She’d said that several times tonight, too. Though how she could honestly think Noah would ever believe that was beyond him.

“Walk, Lila,” he said emphatically, “and keep your hands where I can see them.”

He jabbed the gun into her waist again to urge her down the stairs, not hard enough to hurt her, but hard enough to let her know he was willing to pull the trigger if she tried anything stupid. And he was, dammit. She’d pissed him off plenty in the past, but never like this. What the hell kind of game was she playing? She knew better than to try and pass herself off as someone else to anyone in OPUS, especially Noah. Hell, OPUS had created her. And Noah had been her senior agent at one point. He’d been more than that for one night, but that was something he did his best not to think about these days. Bad enough it had happened in the first place.

When he’d received the intel last night that she was in the middle of Lauderdale’s department store hanging up underwear, Noah’s first impulse had been to send every agent they had to bring her in right then. He couldn’t imagine what could possibly be going on at that store to have attracted her attention enough to not just bring her out of hiding, but put herself on display. Then he’d reminded himself that Lila was efficient and expeditious when carrying out an assignment—whether it was one OPUS gave her or not—and he made himself wait. And watch. Now that Philosopher had passed her the manuscript, it all made sense. But having Sorcerer, a rogue agent they’d been hunting for years, show up within moments of the transfer…

Well. Suffice it to say it looked like all the rumors about Lila going rogue, too, were true. But Noah was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. For now. There weren’t many in the Office for Political Unity and Security who were willing to do that.

With a heavy sigh that could have meant anything, she lowered one foot cautiously to the first stair. Step by step, she descended with her arms kept at shoulder height, Noah never allowing more than an inch of space to separate her and his gun. At the bottom, she hesitated, even though there was only one direction into which they might travel—forward. Before them was a long hallway dotted on both sides by metal doors all the way down. The two of them appeared to be alone, but dozens of people worked in the facility around the clock. Just because the day came to an end didn’t mean an OPUS workday ended. The Office for Political Unity and Security never slept.

“Walk,” Noah said again.

She moved forward slowly, her arms still held out by her head. It was good that she was being so cooperative, but he had no idea why she was being so cooperative. He’d seen Lila take out ten men twice her size in one evening. That she had accompanied him here without a fight was nothing short of astonishing.

As they made their way down the hall, the only discernible sounds were the soft hum of the air conditioner and Lila’s shallow, uneven breathing. Her hands were trembling, and she stumbled more than once as they walked. If he didn’t know better, Noah would have thought she was genuinely terrified. Which was laughable, because Lila Moreau wasn’t afraid of anything. Least of all OPUS.

“Stop here,” he said when they arrived at the door he wanted. She did so without hesitation. Without a fight. Without so much as a curse. “Turn the knob and go inside,” he told her.

Again, she followed his instructions, leading them into an empty interrogation room. Still training his gun on her, Noah closed the door and thumbed a green button on the wall, to announce their arrival. Within seconds, the door opened again and another agent entered the room.

Noah nodded once at the man in acknowledgment, who nodded silently back in reply. His dark eyes widened, and his shaggy black eyebrows shot high when he noted the extent of Noah’s injuries, until he obviously remembered it was Lila Noah had just brought in. Noah didn’t bother to tell the man it was Sorcerer, not she, who’d inflicted the damage. No reason for the other man to let down his guard.