Page 180 of Deep Cover

2

Annie

Once we were free of the airport, the tinted windows of the SUV would be up, sealing me away from anyone on the street who might offer help, from the view of any police who might see us. Once we were free of the airport, I'd be unable to get any clues about where I was. Probably blindfolded. That would make me carsick but it was better than the alternative of being drugged again.

So even then, being dragged down the stairs from the plane, I was gathering as much information as I could.

During the short number of minutes it took to drag me from the open plane, down the stairs, across the tarmac, one man on each arm and an armed guard behind, I heard traffic close by, a major freeway around the airport from what I could tell. There were planes landing one after another and taking off with the rolling thunder of large jets. That felt like a city.

It was early March and the sun was warm but the air was damply cold. I couldn't smell anything other than airport and traffic, nothing definite that spelled out anything specific, but there was a warmth to the wet air that wouldn't have been present in the Pacific Northwest and there was a taste to it, something soft and salty. A little wind, too, enticing rather than the stern, flesh-flaying winds of Nevada.

Best guess? Somewhere on the coast. Narrowing it down, probably California and not Washington or Oregon. I could watch the way the sun moved, but of course that required time and some notion of which way was which until the sun did something definite. Right now it was overhead.

That made me frown. If I tried, maybe I could figure out the timeline. Sunrise in southern Nevada at the beginning of March was about ten minutes after six a.m., but there was a kind of twilight before for half an hour. So Cole probably had me out on the trails at five-forty-five latest. We'd done a twelve mile run, with that short and strange and sweet interruption and –

Ten minute miles. A two hour run. With interruption. If we left at five-forty-five, we'd have been back around eight.

Which would stand me in good stead information-wise if I needed to guess at the time and even then I'd be wrong and even then it was a big so what? Private jets could fly faster than commercial because they supplied their own fuel and to a very real extent, could decide how fast they wanted to burn it.

I could be on the Gulf of Mexico. I didn't know.

That thought made me want to cry. Wanting to cry when I was in trouble wasn't like me and I panicked, afraid that whatever they'd given me might have awakened the addiction again.

That was stupid. That was panic. That wasn't happening.

What was happening was the guy with the gun shoved it into the middle of my back and said, "Try walking."

Nobody stopped him from holding a loaded automatic weapon on me. That told me more than I thought I wanted to know.

So I walked between my guards to the SUV and let them load me into place.

Please find me. Cole. Please.

Bring me home.

The property we approached was enormous, set into the Los Angeles hills and as protected as any superstar from movies or television could want. Definite privacy. What was it with billionaires, sick desires and land that stretched on for miles?

Where nobody can hear you screamI paraphrased to myself, the tag line from some old science fiction movie I'd probably seen with Mark.

The thought didn't come with an accompanying rush of longing for my long suffering fiancé. Mark had stayed with me through several long term undercover stints and through my addiction and what he believed to be my returns to rehab.

Rather than to Cole.

Or into shit like this.

When my life was in danger I often wanted the strength of my father, not to mention his experience as a cop. Or now –

Cole.

They hadn't blindfolded me or brought up such tinting in the car as to make the outside world disappear. That's why I knew where we were, in the Hollywood hills, way too much nothing between us and the nearest star for me to bother screaming.

I’d expected something during the ride. Handcuffs, but those had been removed. A taser set against my skin to stop the slightest twitch. Drugs. Threats.

Nothing. Kie sat on one side of me again and Vincent on the other. There were armed guards in the car and armed guards in the car following and nobody was bothering to talk and though it shouldn't have worked, it did: My fear was ratcheting up by the minute.

Since that first dinner party with the auction, when I'd stood up and said what was happening was stupid and did any of the other women want to walk out with me and cross the twenty miles of desert or so to Vegas and get help? Since that catastrophe Vincent hadn't hurt me.

Kie had. And this time, despite the kidnapping, neither of them had hurt me and I had to believe Cole was still alive and unhurt.

---