Page 4 of Bad Rio

Within minutes, she was cold, and within half an hour, chilled to the bone. Wearing only a cotton blouse and the slacks and loafers in which she’d been kidnapped, and with the night air blowing past her at sixty degrees, it was no wonder she was freezing.

Her teeth chattering, Becca had little choice but to wrap her arms around the man, not only to stay aboard during his swerving, speeding driving, but also to steal his body heat.

The only thing warm on her entire body was a burning sensation on her lower calf, and it was on fire.

Furthermore, she really had no idea whether she’d traded in her Mexican abductors for someone even worse. Was she possibly in more danger? Who was this guy?

He wore only a white T-shirt, with a zippered oilskin bag hung across his shoulder to his opposite side. No coat at all.

She imagined her father, who must be sick with worry, sending in an Army brigade to free her. She imagined heavy-duty firepower wielded with overwhelming force. Cannons and rockets and dozens of soldiers.

Not a lone man.

Had he even been sent by her father? Or was he operating on his own in some far more nefarious plot?

If so, she’d better begin figuring out an escape plan.

At last he slowed. She could tell he’d avoided any thoroughfares or well-traveled streets, and had chosen back roads, sometimes bumpy and winding, and they seemed to be climbing in altitude. Higher and higher they went, uphill, upward, always upward. In the darkness, they saw no other vehicles or people.

He seemed to know where he was going, and they appeared to be heading to a higher elevation, going even farther uphill. The air took on a new biting chill.

Finally, he left any semblance of a road and wended his way between the tall trees of a forest. He bumped them up a wet creek bed so that water splashed her slacks, making her, impossibly, even colder. He avoided boulders and even bigger trees, drove deeper into the wilderness until at last,oh God, thank you, thank you, Lord, he stopped and cut the engine.

“Get off,” he said.

Wanting off the scooter more than anything in the world, yet so stiff from the cold she could barely move, Becca tried to swing her leg over the bike and instead fell to the ground in a frozen heap. Miserable, she lay in the fetal position. Her entire body wracked with shudders.

So far, her escape plan wasn’t working out real well.

The man leaned the scooter into the shadowed lee of a wild oak tree, lifted a gas can hidden in the brush, and refilled the tank. Then, he pulled a tarp from a branch. He threw it over the Vespa and took what looked like netting and completely covered the vehicle with that, too.

“Follow me,” he said, and strode off into the forest heavy with towering oaks.

By the time the jerk managed to figure out she was unable to go after him, she’d gotten up on one elbow. It took all her strength to do even that, and she grimaced in pain. She glanced down, but in the moonless dark couldn’t see anything. Her leg really hurt.

The man came back to her and put his hand under her elbow to draw her upright. He pulled her to her knees before she collapsed back on her bad leg.

“Ow,” she said. “Oh, oh, ow.”

“What’s your problem?” He glanced around the forest. “We’ve got to get inside.”

“My l-l-leg hurts.” Her teeth clattered like falling dominoes.

“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered, bent down, and easily swung her into his arms. He carried her beneath close-growing trees before coming to a small shack. With one booted foot he kicked open the door and shut it behind them, still using his foot.

Becca’s alarm skyrocketed. It appeared more and more like she’d made a terrible decision—to go with him instead of staying with her Mexican captors.

Was this guy going to rape her? Kill her? Leave her for dead in this remote place?

A battery-operated lamp set on a table cast a weak glow. The shack couldn’t have been bigger than a ten-by-ten foot square. Pushed up against the wall sat a quilt-covered bed. A large cooler and a canvas bag were set in the corner.

He placed her on the bed, not roughly, but not gently, either. Taking his bag off his shoulder, he dropped it near the door. “Let’s see the leg,” he ordered.

“Do you have a co—a co—” she stammered, unable to force her lips around the proper words. The cabin was only marginally warmer than the outside air.

“What?” he said impatiently.

She licked her dry mouth. “A coat? I’m fr-freezing.”

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