Page 67 of High Seduction
“Don’t talk to them. Tell me what needs to be done, and I’ll decide if I pass it on.”
“It’s just normal takeoff procedure,” she explained. “Tying things down, making sure they’re secure so if we hit turbulence there’s nothing flying around inside the cockpit with us.”
“Get this thing going.” Ken twisted to the back. “John, watch Tim—tell him to do the normal things to get ready to fly.”
There was always a buzz of excitement that accompanied the slow speeding of the props. Now for the first time there was also dread. As she went through start-up, Erin’s fears grew. She couldn’t see a way out of this without someone getting hurt, and if she was the one who made a wrong decision that led to Tim or Matt being injured or killed, she didn’t know how she’d survive.
It was one time she really didn’t want to be in control.
The one time she had absolutely no choice.
She glanced into the back. Tim must have finished putting things in place. John had taken a second roll of duct tape and was lashing Tim to another chair as far from Matt as possible. With their wrists pinned to the chairs, there wasn’t much that either of them could do to deal with the three men moving freely around the cabin. Erin struggled for the next idea.
“Ken, I need to put on my headset. I need to listen to my instrument panel... some of the signals I use to fly are auditory. And I need to know where you want to go, so I can calculate if I have enough fuel.”
He pulled out a paper. “That’s what we gave the other pilot. It’s a private airstrip, so you don’t need to contact anyone to land. And no, you can’t wear your headset.”
Dammit. Options were fading fast. The rotors were at nearly full speed now, and the volume loud enough to deafen everyone. She checked the coordinates she’d been given and punched the data into her navigator. Then she ignored the fact that she had three unwanted guests and took off without any further warning.
If they got bumped around, so be it.
And then the damn gun came back to mind, and she stifled her instinct to send them into a wild tailspin. She might be okay with the resulting loss of balance, and Tim would be okay, especially since he was locked down. Matt would probably get sick, but that would be fine if it meant they were safe.
But that gun changed things. She headed south, leaving behind the remains of the plane and a man who was dead or dying. Their proven willingness to use violence was far too strong an incentive to follow her captors’ orders.
***
Tim had given up trying to guess what came next. Locked in position, he could do nothing but hope his next breath wasn’t his last. As far as he could tell from his position in the center of the hold, Erin did nothing but take them in a straight line to the private field.
There’d been a second when he wondered if she was going to try something, but a glance over her shoulder had her stopping as soon as she spotted the gun John held pointed in his direction.
He wasn’t even sure what he would tell her to try.
The glimpses he had out the window showed they were passing out of the Rockies and into the lowlands, closing in on the U.S.-Canada border, the thin thread of a river widening into a long stretch of lake that Erin followed for a good fifteen minutes.
Sure enough, the no-touching zone appeared ahead, the swatch of trees cut in a nearly straight line the entire length of the forty-ninth parallel. They were almost out of Canada. There were no major roads visible. No communities.
Little chance they would be spotted and reported to curious border authorities.
Ten minutes past the border, a small clearing in the trees appeared. They were high in the mountains again, this time the less rugged and more rounded Columbia ranges that were common along the BC-Washington or Idaho line. Erin let them down, the pressure and noise in her ears dying away, but a low ringing remaining.
Erin was escorted to the door, where she jerked off Ken’s grasp on her. “I’m not going anywhere without the guys.”
“They’re coming with us. Insurance for your continued good behavior.”
“You have no reason to hurt any of us—” Erin started.
“Shut up. We’ll put you somewhere safe.”
The duct tape was cut away, freeing Tim’s wrists from the chair. Before he could even think about making a move, a new set was applied, locking his hands in front of him and leaving him a lot more helpless than he wished. On the opposite side of the plane he caught glimpses of Matt being given the same treatment.
Then Matt disappeared, led away by Red. John held Tim in place at the side of the field as Erin worked alone to refuel. “It would go faster if I helped her,” he offered.
The man at his side shook his head, crossing his arms as he looked around the ranch area. “No rush. We’re not leaving anytime soon.”
And then he closed his mouth and didn’t say anything else.
Frustration, fear—Tim had it all. They’d killed a man already. What reason could they have for keeping any of them alive once they were no longer useful? Matt’s insistence at being offered up as a hostage had been a necessary evil, but even that didn’t provide insurance for either Erin or himself.
