Take Me Tonight (22 page)

“Sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned,” he said. “And sometimes”—he tilted his head to her and lifted the hypodermic needle he held—“we find a young woman with such valuable eggs that my customers will pay top dollar. But I don’t want yours on that dreary gray market, Sage. I want yours for my poor, infertile wife.”

The words left her reeling. “You’re stealing eggs? And selling them?”

He lifted one shoulder. “A healthy Caucasian, athletic and beautiful, can demand nearly seventy thousand dollars on the underground market. But not yours, dear. I promise.”

She swallowed, stuck on one word.
Caucasian.
“And a non-Caucasian?”

“Of no use to me.”

“Is that what happened to Keisha?”

He snorted derisively. “There’s a market for black eggs like Keisha’s, not that mulatto with the yellow eyes. I don’t know why she brought the Masters woman to me.”

She?
“What happened to Keisha? She didn’t commit suicide, did she?”

“She was pregnant. Only a few weeks, but of no use to me. It just seemed cleaner to aspirate the pregnancy so it appeared she was menstruating. Then I gave her the ephedra.” He lifted the needle. “All right now, Sage. This is simple, and painless.”

And insane. But he was a big man, with a needle. Could she fight him? Hold him off long enough for Johnny to get here? Maybe she could talk him out of it.

“Dr. Garron, did you know I’m part Asian? My great-grandmother was born in Micronesia. You don’t want me.”

“Sage, I don’t care what you are. I’m not selling your eggs; I’m going to plant them in my wife and fertilize them. I told you, I want a daughter just like you. I knew it the first day you interviewed me, all spit and vinegar trying to get your story. A daughter I could be so proud of.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“What would you have said?”

“That you’re crazy.” She regretted the words the minute they were out, seeing a flash of something mean and deadly in his eyes. She stepped back, but behind her, the door clunked open and Sage whipped around. Johnny!

The sight of Glenda Hewitt kicked her in the stomach with disappointment.

“You have to leave!” she shouted at Alonzo, not even looking at Sage. “They found Ashley’s body. Some Amazon woman with a stripe in her hair is all over this. We have to run. We have to get out of here.”

An Amazon woman with a…
Lucy
.

“Please wash and get scrubs on, Glen. We have work to do,” Alonzo said slowly, pointedly.

Glenda spared Sage a disgusted glance. “You have no idea if she’s ready. She never drank anything I gave her. Get rid of her.”

Sage lunged toward the door, but Alonzo grabbed one arm and Glenda got the other one.

She fought his grip, and Glenda pushed her back, holding her in place with a surprisingly strong grasp for such a slight woman. “We can’t exactly drive her into the Charles River with half of the Boston PD out there,” she said, immobilizing Sage from the front. “Any ideas?”

Sage jerked at the burst of fiery heat in her neck, the warmth spreading like flames through her veins, instantly numbing her upper body.

“Yes, I have an idea.” Alonzo’s voice was already garbled and distant as the drug infiltrated her body. “But I have to do one last thing before we leave.”

“You don’t have time to operate.”

“Do you want to die with her, Glen? Then shut up.”

Chapter
Twenty-one

J
ohnny drove like a maniac, weaving in and out of traffic as adeptly as the pathetic little Camry would let him. The sound of Sage’s voice rang in his head, and his own desperate words. He’d almost said he loved her.

He gripped the steering wheel, swore viciously at another driver, and swooped around the car in front of him. The crowded side streets east of the Charles and south of Mass General were a mess of narrow one-ways, truly mapped out by the cows that roamed the town hundreds of years earlier. He ignored an indignant horn and barreled the wrong way down Philips. Finally, he reached the tiny white building with a brass plate on the front:
ALONZO GARRON
.
OBSTETRICS
,
GYNECOLOGY
,
INFERTILITY
.

It had been seventeen minutes. Was she still in there? He double parked in the middle of the street and ran to the entrance to pound on the glass. “Sage!”

Inside, it was completely dark. To get to the back of the building, he’d have to run to the end of the block and down the alley in the back. Which would be faster than driving in circles on one-way streets. He took off for the corner, turning it just as a dark car screamed toward him. He jumped away, scraping brick and barely saving himself. By the time he got on his feet, the asshole was gone. He continued his run to the back, making it down the alley in less than a minute.

Garron’s red Mercedes was the only car parked there. At least she hadn’t left with him. But had she gotten out, or was she still locked inside? As he started toward the back door, pulling out his gun and ready to shoot anyone or anything that stopped him, he heard a deep rumble under the ground. Then the entire building ruptured in a deafening blast of smoke, fire, and concrete, sending him sailing ten feet backward and slamming him so hard into a brick wall, he was sure he was dead.

But he could still hear. An alarm, another powerful boom, windows popping and glass shattering, a scream in the distance. And the acrid, bitter smell of dynamite and destruction.

“Sage!” The gun still in his hand, he wiped soot and grime from his eyes to clear his vision. His heart collapsed at the destruction of the building where Sage had been. Bright orange flames started to lick what was left of the little facility, as a siren wailed and people shouted.

His cell phone buzzed against his hip. He managed to reach into his pocket, flip it open, praying for a miracle. If there was anything in the world he wanted to hear, it was Sage saying,
I’m home, Johnny
.

“Did you find her?”

He managed not to swear at Dan. “I think so.” He stared at the rubble, imagining her rising from the ashes and running to him like in the movies. But only strangers poured out of the nearby buildings, drawn to the disaster.

Johnny knew too much about a bomb in a building like that. No one had survived that blast.

“What’s all the noise?” Dan asked.

Black smoke billowed toward him. “Are you with Lucy?”

“Yeah.”

How could he tell her? How could he admit that he was the first Bullet Catcher to lose a principal, and that principal was the niece she loved?

“Is everything okay?” Dan asked. “Are you okay?”

He lied, again. “Yeah.” Another siren wailed.

“Where’s Sage?”

“I don’t know.” More lies.

“Listen to me,” Dan said. “If you haven’t found the doctor, you need to go after Glenda. Lucy planted a GPS tracker on Glenda’s car this afternoon. We think the doctor and Glenda are together, and that may lead us to Sage.”

Johnny looked in the direction where the dark sedan had almost creamed him, and grabbed the tendril of hope with everything he had. “Let’s get her.”

Every bone and muscle in her body hurt. Her throat was so dry, it felt like she’d tear flesh if she tried to make a sound. But even if she could blink, move, or swallow, she wouldn’t dare. Her survival instinct screamed at her to be still and act dead.

Or else she’d
be
dead.

Sage knew that the minute she woke up in a car trunk, bound and choking on a rag that smelled of formaldehyde and alcohol. She couldn’t reach the trunk release, and wouldn’t survive a jump even if she had been able to knee the thing open. So, for God knew how long, she forced herself to wake up, to think, to try to imagine where these two lunatics were taking her and what her best chance at escape was.

As they rumbled along at highway speed, Sage concentrated on breathing slowly, relaxing into the pain that racked her body, and replaying the answers she finally had.

They were stealing eggs. No wonder Glenda knew when every dancer was having her period. Glenda was arranging these kidnappings, and then down in the bowels of his office, Garron was taking their eggs. And when Keisha’s turn came up…she was already pregnant with LeTroy’s baby. So they killed it, and her.

Breathe, Sage. Breathe
. And think about something good. Something to live for. Something to fight for.

She closed her eyes, and all she could see was one man. What if she was murdered tonight and she never saw Johnny Christiano again? Her heart pummeled against her knees and she curled her head down into the fetal postion they’d bound her in, her hands tied tightly behind her, crushed between the weight of her body and something sharp and hard.

A wave of terror threatened, so she breathed through her nose as slowly and deeply as she could, focusing on the sound of the engine changing gears, realizing they were slowing down. They rumbled over cinders or stones, and her weight shifted as the car headed uphill. A very steep hill. Where in God’s name were they taking her?

And who would ever find her?

Johnny.
She practically whimpered his name. She hadn’t even given him a chance to finish his sentence. She could still hear his voice.

Nothing, not one minute of time with you, wasn’t real. Or perfect. Or amazing. I love being with you. I love…

The car stopped on the hill, rolling her closer to the back, then the engine died. If Garron thought she’d come out of her hypodermic haze, he’d stab her again. Or worse.

She steeled herself in raw determination. She could act unconscious, play dead, find the right time to run. She could do whatever it took to stay alive.

Glenda made a shrill demand, but all Sage understood was the tone of desperation. Alonzo didn’t respond. In a minute, the trunk popped open. She instantly sank into her role.

But blood rushed in her head, thrumming through her veins, singing in her ears. If the doctor took her pulse now, he’d know she was wide awake. But she fought every instinct, so still not even an eyelash fluttered. They lifted her, clunking her knees against the car, but she didn’t even flinch. She let her head and limbs go completely slack, while Alonzo dragged her over gravel.

Then she heard the sound of water, a rushing powerful swell of surf pounding against rocks. Hadn’t he mentioned a home on Marblehead Neck? She tried to visualize the pricey peninsula connected to Boston’s North Shore. That had to be where she was. Even with the rag in her mouth, she could smell the salt water of New England’s coast, could imagine the black Atlantic Ocean far below a ragged, rocky cliff.

“Upstairs,” Alonzo said, pulling Sage into somewhere even darker, chillier. A garage.

“Can’t we use a downstairs bedroom?” Glenda asked.

“I need equipment,” he said gruffly. “An aspirator. The right needle. She’ll need ten more milligrams of Versed, stat. What I gave her is going to wear off any minute.”

Sage let her head drop forward, concentrating on staying limp. With her face down, she risked a tiny peek under her lashes, but saw only a gray floor and her own feet. They dragged her up carpeted stairs, then up a narrow wooden set. She tried to picture her surroundings, find an escape route. She imagined herself being taken to an attic.

“Put her there,” he ordered.

Glenda flung her onto something high and hard, like the examining tables at his office. “Hurry,” Glenda insisted. “Get the Versed before she wakes up.”

“I can’t make a mistake. She hasn’t taken hormones. I’ll be lucky to get one egg.”

“Why is this so important?” Glenda’s voice shot up an octave. “This isn’t why we do this. There’s no profit in this.”

“Sometimes there are more important things than profit. Isn’t that why you first came to me? You wanted another child. Or have you gotten so wrapped up in the money that you forget I have the power to do what God can’t? To make babies where there wasn’t ever going to be one?

“I want a baby. Why do you think I got rid of my first wife and married someone half my age?” He snorted. “An
infertile
someone half my age. But Sage’s eggs could make the child I want to have. Surely you, of all people, understand that.”

Metal clanged, like surgical tools being taken out of a drawer.

“Just hurry up,” Glenda finally whispered. “It’ll be my job to get rid of her just like Keisha and Ashley, so let’s get this over with before she wakes up.”

“It doesn’t matter if she wakes up, because no one’s going to come for her. They’ll find her purse in the rubble in my office and pronounce her blown to bits.”

It took everything Sage had not to let a whimper escape her lips. He’d set an explosion in his office! Johnny would assume she was dead.

She felt her last shred of hope shrivel and die. This one time, Johnny hadn’t followed her, like she’d secretly imagined. He wasn’t coming for her. She’d have to get herself out of this on her own. Or die.

“Help me undress her,” he ordered, already tugging at one shoe, then the other, dropping them to the floor. He grabbed the waistband of her yoga pants and pulled them down, the air chilling her bare skin. Sage held her breath to keep her stomach from clenching and revealing her as awake.

One of them got her pants off and she heard the material fall to the floor.

“You don’t have to stare at her,” Glenda said sharply. “You’ve seen a million naked women.”

Creepy chills threatened.
Oh, God, no goose bumps.
He’d know she was awake and listening.

“Some women,” Garron said slowly, “are more beautiful than others.”

She braced herself for his touch, for a hot hand that would make her flinch. But there was none.

“I’m going downstairs to get my bag from the car,” he said, his voice gruff.

In a moment, a door opened and closed. This was it. He had to go down two flights of stairs and into the driveway. Sage clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. This was her only chance. She heard a sound to her right, and from under her lashes she saw Glenda, her back turned. Sage didn’t even take a minute to think. She just popped up and flung her arm around Glenda’s neck, yanking it back as hard as she could.

Glenda stabbed a powerful elbow into Sage’s rib but Sage tightened her stranglehold, her eyes darting madly in search of a weapon. On the counter, she grabbed the sharpest, longest blade she could find, fighting Glenda’s vicious struggle with nothing but sheer determination. With a grunt, Sage shoved the point into Glenda’s side, the knife making a sickening rubbery sound as it slid through flesh.

Glenda jerked and threw herself forward, but Sage held on. She wrenched the knife out and stabbed again, warm, wet blood squirting all over her bare legs as Glenda’s cry of pain faded into a growl as she lost the fight. Sage pushed her to the door and managed to open it and shove her outside. She yanked the door and locked it with a dead bolt, her breath strangled, her heart still galloping. What did that buy her? Five minutes? Two? Nothing?

She heard Glenda call out a low, long plea for help.

For the first time, she looked around the room, her vision blurred from the drugs and the fight, her body quaking with adrenaline and fear. Three of the walls were windows. Not an attic. A lookout, maybe under a widow’s walk like on so many Marblehead homes. Without taking an extra second she scooped up her pants, held them between her teeth, and lunged to a windowsill. Tugging the cord of a flimsy blind in a frenzy, she patted the edges of the window with desperate hands.

She found a lock and pushed it to the side, just as she heard footsteps. “Come on!” she pleaded, shoving at the window frame, the paint stuck like glue. Should she try another window? With superhuman strength, she pried the bottom pane open, pushing it wide in one mighty thrust. She scrambled out to the roof but couldn’t get her footing and went sliding down a slope of shingles that tore and scraped her bare legs and bottom.

Crying softly, she thunked onto a flat overhang, landing on her knees and barely hanging on to the flat metal roof. She risked a glance up to the window, gasping for breath. Any minute he’d be after her. With a knife, a gun, a
needle
. Wincing at her cuts, she shimmied into her pants to protect her mangled skin, and looked at where she was.

Oh, hell. She was twenty feet over a cement patio, and everything in the moonless night was black. Black water, black cliffs, black night. Squinting, she tried to make out the edges of the lawn, but it appeared to be completely enclosed by a high brick wall. She’d climb it if she had to. She’d scale the cliffs and risk drowning. But she wasn’t going to sacrifice her life for that monster who’d killed Keisha and would kill her.

A thud and a holler told her he’d gotten in. She scrambled to the side of the overhang, deciding between a fall, a perilous jump to an oak tree branch, or testing her weight on the gutterspout that ran to the ground. Grabbing hold of the gutter, she eased her trembling body over the edge of the roof and wrapped her legs around the downspout. It groaned and one metal strap popped out of a tenuous screw, but it held. More screws poked her bare feet and her fingers burned as she held on and dropped inch by agonizing inch. Ten feet from the ground, she let go and hit the concrete so hard, the impact cracked her teeth together. But she was down, and alive.

She spun around, in search of a gate or a tree tall enough to climb over the wall, but there was nothing but ominous shadows. Over her rushing pulse, she heard the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs and rocks and offering her only escape…or instant death. She had no idea how far down it was. Too damn far to jump, that was for sure.