KIDNAPPED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (9 page)

The image of a tightrope walker carrying a very wobbly pole flashed through his mind. If he didn’t watch his step, a very large pigeon named Petrov Kreshnin would perch on that wire and knock him off balance, or Jake Carlisle and his little Russian witness would cut the wire right out from under him.

His mind added up all the possibilities as quick as an accountant’s fingers on the keys of an adding machine. Perhaps he could use this fiasco to his benefit.

“I think it’s time the Feds searched for our Mr. Carlisle and your ward, Nicholai, don’t you, Petrov?”

“You expect the FBI to just hand them over to you, my friend?”

The hesitancy on the mafia leader’s end of the conversation pleased the man. He picked up a pen, rolling it between his fingers. “You might be right, Petrov. It’s time to let the feds do our hunting for us.”

* * *

Jake watched the dawning of her situation settle on Samantha’s shoulders. She slumped further into the leather seat, her fingers gripping the steering wheel so tight her knuckles blanched white.

Damn, he’d done nothing but turn her world upside down. Now he’d managed to put her life in danger, too. Somehow he needed to protect all of them and he didn’t have a frickin clue who was pulling the local police division’s strings. With Bridges dead, he didn’t have a snowball’s chance of finding out either.

He stared out the passenger window, the buildings speeding past as they drove away from the scene of Captain Bridges’ death. Hot, stinging tears flooded Jake’s eyes, blurring the scenery before him. Tom had been his lieutenant when he’d been a young rookie, and his captain for the past five years. More importantly, he’d been a friend. Now, he was gone. What would his wife and kids do without him?

“If we aren’t going to my house, or to my brother’s, where are we going?”

Samantha’s question interrupted his grieving. With one hand he rubbed at his eyes. Damn he didn’t have time for this. If he didn’t get his act together and start thinking, they’d all be as dead as Tom.

“We need to ditch these plates.” He scanned the access road up ahead. Snow flakes fell softly across the windows of the car. A service garage sign appeared, then flashed by. “Pull off at the next exit. We’ll double back to that auto repair shop.”

Samantha maneuvered the car at the exit he’d requested, turning to the right and heading back down the service road. “It looks like it’s closed all ready.”

“Good. Pull in back.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, following his directions.

Jake slid Nicky out of his arms to lay on the seat. “Do you have a screw driver in here?” He opened the car door, stepping out in the frigid Ohio air.

“I have a complete tool kit, thanks to my dad.” Sami hopped out and opened the back of the Suburban. She pulled out the tool box, but held it away from him when he reached for it. “First, tell me what you plan on doing?”

The woman picked the most inconvenient times to show her stubborn streak. He might think her courage sexy as hell, but if they didn’t get a move on it, they’d be behind bars or six feet under.

“First,” he repeated the word back at her through clenched teeth, “I’m going to trade your tag with one of these cars in the lot. That will give us a little maneuvering room. The FBI and highway patrol will be looking for your plates, not the ones we’ll be using. Then we have to find some safe place to hole up for the night, if not longer.”

Satisfied with his explanation, Samantha handed him the tool kit. She stepped to the truck’s front end to keep an eye on the road for any cars or police while Jake set about switching the plates. He glanced up once to see her seriously keeping lookout. She stood with her hands tucked in the pockets of her coat, her breath swirling in the cold air, snow flakes falling around her, landing on her dark hair.

The woman continued to amaze him. Any other woman, given the situation, would’ve gone hysterical at the sight of a man being murdered. True, shock froze her for the first few seconds, but she’d managed to get them all out of there fairly unscathed.

How had she learned to maneuver a car in reverse like a Hollywood stuntman?

Now, when his simple explanation about switching the plates appeased her curiosity, it also elicited her help. If only he could have met her under other circumstances.

“Almost finished?” She looked at him, rubbing her naked hands together in the cold air. The light was fading fast. It always did in Ohio in November.

“Just about.” He gave the screw one last turn, replaced the screw driver in the kit, signaling her to get into the passenger seat. “You hold Nicky a while. I’ll drive.”

Once they were on the road, he crossed over the freeway, entered the southbound side, and headed back toward the downtown area.

“Where are you going? Downtown will be flooded with police, looking for us.” Panic laced Sami’s voice. Two squad cars with screaming sirens passed them, heading North in the direction they just left, emphasizing her words.

“That’s why. By now, they’ll have spread out, searching for your car going in any direction but downtown. And some witness will have told them you got on the North bound side of the freeway.” Two more cars flashed past them. “I want to head the opposite way. We’ll get off at High Street and slowly work our way out of town to the South. We might find a motel to stay in.”

“Won’t they be searching those? I mean on all those cop shows you see them pulling the bad guys out of the motels. Isn’t it like in the police handbook or something?” She grinned at him. “You know, step number one, have high speed chase through busiest intersections in town. Step number two, find sleaziest motels on the outskirts of town, handcuff anyone with fifty tattoos on their arms.”

He laughed. The woman had spunk. In trouble up to their necks, and she managed to make him laugh. “Yeah, that’s the chapter right before, how to chase your suspect through back alleys, over fences and deep forest ravines. Be sure to jump into every mud puddle, and pile of broken glass you can find.”

“Seriously, though. Won’t they be looking at all the motels tonight for my car?” she asked.

Jake slouched back in his seat, rubbing one hand over his face. “Yes.”

“I don’t know about you, but I know Nicky and I could use a good night’s sleep.”

A derisive laugh escaped him. “Lady, I don’t know how to break this to you, but I don’t know if any of us will ever have a good night’s sleep, again.”

“What if I told you I know a place for us to stay. Not just for tonight but maybe long enough for you to decide how to get us out of this mess?”

Jake gazed at her for a moment in the fading evening light. God had finally answered one of his prayers when he’d been in that parking lot last night looking for some help. “Where?”

“When you get off on High street head south to Lancaster, then down into Logan and the Hocking Hills.” She loosened the quilt around Nicky, her hand running over his head.

“How’s he doing?”

“He seems cooler. His breathing is even, and his pulse isn’t as fast. The Tylenol may be working.”

“Poor kid. You’re right. He needs to rest in one spot for a while. This place we’re heading to, is it in your name?”

Sami shook her head. “No. It belongs to, my ex-husband’s Uncle Victor. Victor never could stand Michael. So, when we divorced, Victor came to my house, gave me a key and told me to feel free to use it anytime I wanted. He said I had more right to it than Michael ever would.”

Jake winked at her. “I think I like Uncle Victor.”

The snow started to fall in earnest as they made their way through the rural farmland. It coated the road in a fine white layer.

Jake flipped on the radio to listen for the weather and news reports. Sami hummed to the classic rock songs, never quite finding the right key for any of them. He smiled to himself in the darkened interior of the car. Funny thing, when the Rolling Stones came on, she matched old Mick note for note.

As they drove through the small town of Logan, Sami pointed to a grocery store with a pharmacy. “Pull in there.”

“We can’t risk being seen out here, Samantha,” he warned her, even as he did as she asked.

“There may not be much food out at the cabin, Jake. I think I should lay in some food stores.” She slid Nicky off her lap, wiggling out the door. Jamming her baseball cap on her head, she pulled the brim just a little lower. “Besides, as far as we know, no one knows I’m traveling with you. I can sneak in and out probably unnoticed.”

“Wait, do you have any cash?”

She fished out her ATM card. “No, I’ll just use this.”

“Hold on.” He climbed out of his side, pulling out a bundle of cash he’d stashed in his jeans at the bank earlier in the day. “Don’t use any credit cards, ATM or phone cards for now. We don’t want to leave an electronic trail with them.”

A charming blush crept over her face in the dim parking lot lights. “Oh God. I’ve become so accustomed to using the electronic cards, I didn’t even consider they could trace us by them.” She took the cash and headed inside.

Jake stood in the swirling snow, watching her walk away from him. He smiled as he watched her pony tail bounce on the back of her jacket and her hips gently sway with each step.

What a woman. How had he gotten so lucky last night? Despite the danger he knew he’d dragged her into, he had to admit he was glad she was to have her at his side. For the first time in a very long time, he didn’t feel alone.

He climbed back into the truck, pulling Nicky up against his side. The little boy’s lids fluttered open. Jake smiled into his deep blue eyes. “Svasvrashchnem, Nicholai. Ya fibya nadoaydiu.”
Welcome back, Nicholai. You had me very worried.

“Gdyay nahodetscia jenshina preyatna, Jake?”
Where is the nice lady, Jake?

“Ona vosvrashchalla vscoray. Ona pashley nahodet ppeshcha. Nam nada skrivatz v Kreshnin-ya.”
She will be right back. She went to get some food. We have to hide from the Kreshnins and the bad guys, little partner.

“Mrye nravetsiz ona.”
I like her.
He mumbled before drifting back to sleep.

“I like her, too.” Jake watched the front of the store windows, absently stroking the little boy’s arm and back.

The question remained, what to do with the lady? Part of him wanted to send her to her brother as fast as he could. Not to protect just her, but he had a feeling he needed some protection from her. At least his heart and soul did. She could be a very dangerous person to him. Then the other part of him wanted to tie her to the bed and keep her forever.

“Damn it! This is not a time for me to be thinking with the smaller of my brains. I can’t even keep Samantha safe. How can I think of making love to her?” His lower body tightened in response to his words.

Yeah he knew how he could think of it. He’d been thinking about it off and on since he’d held the little brunette all through the night last night.

What did you call hair that was mostly shiny brown with hairs of red and gold spun in and out of it?

“Great, now I sound like some lovesick poet,” he told himself with disgust.

Thankfully the news came on, saving him from slipping further into his maudlin thoughts. The snow was expected to accumulate to three inches in the city, heavier in the outlying areas, particularly those southeast of the mid-Ohio area.

That could be good news. If they got snowed in somewhere, whoever searched after them might get snowed in, too.

The news again called the kidnapping and FBI manhunt the most important news of the day. Jake groaned as the report went on to state that the FBI now believed he had a female accomplice. No description of their car was given, which gave him a little hope. And finally, the sports announced that the Buckeyes had beaten Michigan.

“All right!”

“All right, what?” Sami asked as she opened the rear passenger door and dropped in several well loaded bags of groceries.

“The Buckeyes managed to beat Michigan.

She wiggled into the seat, pulling Nicky against her. “All right!”

“Find everything we need?” Jake asked, putting the car in gear. He pulled out onto the road.

Sami grinned at him. “Yes. Even something we needed that I didn’t think we’d be able to get.”

“What?”

“Antibiotics.” Sami laughed at the surprised look on face.

“How did you manage that?”

She sat back smugly in her seat. “Turn left at the next intersection. That road will take us back into the Hocking Hills. After about twelve miles we’ll come to a private camp resort. Victor’s cabin is back in there.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He headed in the direction she gave, then glanced at her. “So, how did you get the antibiotics?”

“The pharmacist was a rather elderly gentleman. I simply played upon his kind nature.”

Jake raised one brow at her in question.

She laughed. “I told him that my stupid husband had insisted on dragging us down from Cleveland to see his horrid mother. And now we were stuck here for the weekend, and our daughter was terribly sick. I asked him which over the counter medication would help her symptoms, fever, headache, wheezing and oh this awful green stuff she was coughing up.”

“He bought it hook, line, and sinker?”

Sami waved the bottle of thick, pink liquid antibiotics in front of her face. “But of course!”

“That stuff will really make Nicky feel better?”

“It should do the trick.” Sami slipped the bottle into her coat pocket. She hated deceiving the elderly man, but if it would make Nicky better, it was well worth the lie.

“Sweetheart, I could just kiss you.”

Sami looked at Jake. For once he truly seemed happy. Her heart picked up its pace at the look on his face.
Oh hell, why not?
“I’ll remind you of that later.”

Jake gave her an intense stare that said he might just take her up on the challenge, all laugher gone from his face, then focused on the snow covered road they were driving down.

What in the world had possessed her to say that?

A severe case of horniness?

Oh, shut up!