Page 68 of High Seduction
Red emerged from the cabin where he’d disappeared, wood smoke curling from the chimney. He was alone, and Tim’s stomach flipped with worry.
“Where’s Matt?”
“He’s safe. If he is who he says he is, we’ll treat him well.”
It was the longest time before Ken escorted Erin across the field. An icy chill was settling into Tim’s limbs from the lack of movement and the tight tape around his wrists.
Erin met his eyes. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Ken pushed Erin toward the small metal shed beside the cabin. “In you go.”
“Tim—”
“Is going with you.”
The short glimpse of light while the door was open showed that there was nothing much in the place but a couple of barrels. Tim shuffled forward awkwardly, uncertainty rising again, but the fact that they were together was good.
Good yet still terrifying. Matt wasn’t with them, and they only had the word of killers that his friend would stay safe.
If he could have turned back the clock and never offered the suggestion of the getaway, he would in a second.
The door closing them into the small shed didn’t help.
After the past hours of high-volume noise, his ears rang with imagined sound. Still, both he and Erin stood silently for a moment, straining to hear footsteps moving away. Listening for some sign they were really alone.
The cabin door slammed—which was no assurance, but was probably the best they could expect. Tim turned toward where Erin stood, thin lines of daylight sneaking in through cracks near the ceiling.
“Oh, God.” Erin shook violently, then reached for him. “Let me take the tape off you.”
“There’s a pocketknife inside my coat. Right inside breast pocket.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Seriously?”
“They weren’t concerned about frisking me, just in getting here.”
She bit the tip of her glove and pulled it off, unzipping his coat and slipping her hand inside to find the blade. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of anything to do that wasn’t going to put you guys in danger.”
“There was nothing you could do. We need to get out of here, though, because once we’re not needed...”
He didn’t want to bring back images of the pilot. Deadweight, Ken had said.
At what point did he and Erin become deadweight?
“You did good,” he assured her. “And they had you refuel the chopper—so maybe they still need you to fly them somewhere.”
Erin lowered her voice. “I was considering a spinout. I thought about stalling. I thought about taking us straight to a manned airport—and I didn’t do any of them because I was afraid—”
“For good reason.” He pulled the last of the tape from his wrists and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight. “Oh God, Erin, I did the same mental wrangling, and there was no solution. If you’d done any of those things we might all be dead right now.”
Erin slipped her hands up to his chest and pushed him back slightly. “Do up your coat. How are your hands? It’s cold, and if we’re going to have a chance to get away, we need to be as warm as possible before we go out there again.”
Both of them were deliberately ignoring the impossibility of getting Matt out from right under the kidnappers’ noses.
“Look around in here, see if there’s anything that can help us.” Tim tucked things back into place, slipping his knife into his main right pocket.
She had her coat open and was placing the strips of duct tape she’d cut off him onto her clothes. “Just in case we need them later,” she explained. “And I know it’s no use right here, but there’s a gun in the chopper.”
