Undeniably Yours (31 page)

“Well?” He smiled, lifted his hands. “Aren't you going to say hello? It's been a long time.”

Her pulse went into an uproar, clamoring. She was alone in a parking garage with Stephen. Was she in danger? Or could this meeting be a coincidence? He looked calm. His words had been benign.

“Fancy running into you like this, Meg. I'm glad. I've been wanting to talk to you. I'd like to apologize, if you'll let me.”

She took a halting step back, scanning the space behind him, hoping to spot someone, anyone.

Empty.

He motioned to a nearby car. “How about we go somewhere and talk? I can buy you coffee or dinner.”

“I'm not interested.”

“No?”

She was in danger. His words still hadn't revealed it, but her instincts knew it.
Oh, God
. Should she run for her car? Or head back to the safety of the store? She could see the walkway leading back to Neiman's. She'd return to the store.

She passed by him.

He didn't respond.

She set off fast, sparing a glance back.

He was following. Gaining. Pulling a folded square of cloth from his jacket pocket as he reached for her.

Panic
. She bolted into a run and drew in a breath to scream—

He clamped the cloth onto her mouth, then hauled her body against his.

She screamed with all the force she had, but the cloth swallowed the sound. She fought his hold, striking at his arms with her keys. In response, he wadded and stuffed the cloth deep into her mouth, then wrenched her hands behind her. Something tightened around her wrists. A plastic restraint?
My God
, she called out in the frenzy of her mind. She yanked to free her hands. Couldn't.

Stephen dragged her toward the row of cars. Meg writhed and gagged and worked to yell around the cloth. Not loud enough! Not loud enough to alert anyone.

He pulled her to a green sedan, and all the warnings she'd ever heard crushed down on her.
Don't let an assailant put you in a car
, the experts said. She thrashed with increasing alarm, scanning her surroundings, searching for someone to help her.

Still no one.

He forced her down into the passenger seat, then clicked the seat belt across her. Heavily, he leaned against her knees, and she felt another plastic restraint cinch her ankles together. When he closed her in and walked around to the driver's side,
she tried to jerk her feet upward, but they wouldn't move. She could see that he'd fastened her ankle tie to a metal ring drilled down into the frame of his car.

He'd planned all of this. Her throat worked against the cloth. Air panted desperately through her nose. He'd planned all of this.

He started the engine.

She twisted in her seat, trying to free her hands and feet.

“Chill, Meg. I'm not going to hurt you.” He spoke in a casual tone, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “You've always been a cooperative girl. If you sit there and relax, I'll let you stay awake. Otherwise, I'll have to give you a shot that'll make you fall asleep. What'll it be?”

His words cut through the clatter in her brain and caused her to still. She could not—NOT—afford to let him knock her out. There's no telling what he'd do to her unconscious and defenseless body.

“I hate being interrupted by cell phone calls. You?” He switched on a black rectangular device plugged into his cigarette lighter. “This will keep that from happening.” He reversed out of the parking place and maneuvered the car toward the exit.

What did he want from her? Where was he taking her? He had no conscience, she knew that. Sociopath, she knew that. Terrible temper, she knew that. But he'd never physically harmed her before. Maybe he'd meant what he'd said and didn't plan to hurt her.

Then why had he just kidnapped her? Bound her hands and feet? Blocked her cell phone signal?

Fear plunged through her.

God, come
, she begged.
God, come.

He reached over and removed the cloth from her mouth. She gasped and screwed shut her eyes, sucking in air.

“There you are,” he said companionably. “Better?”

Bo turned his truck into Neiman Marcus's parking garage and began to look for Meg's Mercedes. A black suburban passed him going the other way. Then a dark green Honda. He caught a flash of pale color from within the car as it swept past.

He refocused on the lane in front of him, searching for her car on either side. . . .

A trickle of recognition had him looking in his rearview mirror at the Honda. He'd seen that car. Where?

He braked and watched the Honda exit the garage.

The night he and Meg had kissed for the first time. He'd followed her home through Holley. It had been late, and he'd seen only one other car on the road. A dark green Honda like that one. Come to think of it, he thought he might have driven past a car like that in Holley a few other times.

He pulled into an empty parking space, backed out, and headed in the same direction as the Honda.

This was ridiculous. He hadn't been thinking straight since Meg had dumped him, and now he was so out-of-his-mind paranoid that he was suspecting . . . what? That this Honda and the one he'd seen in Holley were the same car? C'mon.

The Honda slid away from him, down the road that circled the mall, its red taillights burning into the gray haze of the coming night.

He'd told Sadie Jo that he'd check on Meg. He ought to find her car in the garage, then find Meg herself inside the store.
She'd be fine, and he'd feel like an idiot for worrying about some stranger's Honda.

Except his intuition wanted him to follow the car. When he'd driven past it a few moments ago he'd seen something inside it. Nothing much. A flash of pale color that might have been, could have been . . .

Meg's blond hair.

Go
, the voice within him urged.
Go.

Shaking his head, he turned onto the road. He'd pull up beside the car and take a look inside to prove to himself that he'd been mistaken. Then he'd return to the mall like a sane person.

The Honda took the on-ramp to the tollway heading south, then less than a mile later transferred onto the turnpike going east. Once on the turnpike, the Honda settled into a middle lane. Bo stayed to the right of it, hanging back, then gaining gradually. When he came even with it, his much taller truck hid the Honda's driver from view but gave Bo a shadowed look downward at the passenger.

It only took a fraction of a second to recognize her profile. Meg.

Meg
was inside that car. Why in the world would she have left her car behind and gone off with this person? He didn't think she would have, voluntarily.

He swore and changed lanes until he could get a look at the driver. A light-haired man, about his age. No one he recognized. Both Meg and the driver stared straight ahead.

Bo eased off the gas and let his car fall back. If this person had abducted her, Bo was going to kill him. He was going to rip him apart, piece by piece. If the man hurt her in any way—

The coldest fear he'd ever known seized him. His breath sawed in and out. Between his fury, the darkness, and the light
rain that had just begun to fall, he could hardly see the road in front of him.

He had to see, to think. Meg needed him. He switched on his windshield wipers and kept a close watch on the Honda, illuminated by his headlights.

What did he know?

He knew that this Honda must be the same one he'd seen in Holley the night he and Meg had first kissed. That night had been what . . . more than two weeks ago? So the driver had been following Meg at least that long if not longer. The man probably knew all her patterns by now, probably knew that in the past few weeks she'd hardly left her property except to go to work or spend time with him. Meg had been alone in an unprotected place tonight, maybe for the first time in days.

Could this man, her abductor, be the one who'd framed him? To get him out of the way? He didn't know the man's identity, his plan, his weapons, or where he was taking Meg.

His top priority? To tail the Honda until he could get help from the police. He needed to do it without causing the driver to suspect he was being followed. Bo let a few cars come between him and the Honda, grateful for the rain that blurred everything, glad that his truck had no remarkable features. It looked like every other truck on the road in north Texas.

He dug his phone out of his pocket, but paused just before hitting 9-1-1. He should attempt to reach Meg on her cell first. If he'd made a mistake and she hadn't been taken against her will, she could simply say so. Since Meg no longer answered his calls, he phoned Sadie Jo. Trying to sound normal, he told her he was having trouble locating Meg and asked if she'd mind getting in touch with her, then calling him right back. She agreed. He waited, tense, counting the seconds.

Bo had been in high-pressure, dangerous situations as a Marine. But not like this. Not with Meg involved, Meg the one in danger, Meg at some man's mercy.

When he got his hands on the driver of that car he was going to
tear his head off
—

His phone rang. Sadie Jo informed him that Meg hadn't picked up.

Bo thanked her, disconnected, and punched 9-1-1. When a female operator answered, he explained the situation. She asked him to describe their location, their direction, and Stephen's vehicle, then told him she'd send out a squad car.

Bo ended the call and prayed for the police to arrive quickly.

The Honda turned north on 75, backtracking the route that Bo himself had taken from Holley to the mall. It made sense that the man would be returning to a location near Holley. If he'd been watching Meg for as long as Bo suspected he had, he'd probably been staying near Whispering Creek.

Where were the cops?

When the Honda exited 75, Bo stayed five cars back. It went east, through a north Plano neighborhood.

Bo called 9-1-1 again. They put him through to the operator he'd first spoken with. He updated her on their location. “Where's the squad car?”

“Sir, there's a major freeway accident south of you that includes a chemical spill and fatalities. The squad car that was coming to intercept you has been delayed.”

“Exactly how soon,” he gritted out, “will it catch up to us?”

“I just don't know.”

“Listen, a woman has been kidnapped and she's in danger. I need a policeman to pull over the car she's traveling in
right now
.”

“Sir—”

“I need you now!”

“Once again, sir, we'll be there as soon as we're able.”

Bo hung up and released a string of curses. If he couldn't count on the police to arrive in time, Meg only had him.

Since he'd spotted Meg inside the Honda, his attention hadn't left the car for a second because so long as he hadn't lost the car, he hadn't lost Meg. The sight of its paint under the streetlights, its rear bumper, its back windshield had all drilled into his head.

But the farther they drove from the highway, the fewer the cars. If Meg's kidnapper noticed Bo tailing him, Bo feared the man would turn panicky. He likely had a knife or a gun with him in that car, and if he chose to use one of them on Meg while they were traveling, Bo would be too far away to protect her. But if he let the Honda pull out of his line of sight, he might lose the car.

He decided to do everything he could, as safely as possible, not to be noticed. He hung back. Changed lanes. Forced himself to turn onto side streets a few times, dying inside until he caught sight of the Honda again.

Like an accomplice, the rain continued, faithfully shielding him. The neighborhood thinned into more open country Bo recognized, about five miles south of Holley. He killed his truck's lights and called Jake. He willed his brother to answer as the phone rang, rang, and finally sent him to voice mail. He tried calling two more times. Still no answer. The recording asked him to leave a message.

“I need your help. Meg's been kidnapped and the police are trying to get here but haven't made it yet. I'm following the car she's in, and I think we're getting close to the destination. I'll call or text the location as soon as I know it.”

The Honda took a right onto a farm road. When Bo reached
the intersection, he didn't dare turn in. He continued past a short distance. Then he stopped, counted to ten, and turned down the farm road the Honda had taken.

His vision strained as he searched the heavy darkness. He kept expecting at any moment to regain a visual on the other car, but he could see nothing but countryside.

Terror washed over him.

Where was it? He hunched forward, looking down each dirt road that broke away from the farm road. Barely breathing. Trying his hardest to locate the Honda—and Meg—again, to see where it had gone. His lips moved soundlessly as he prayed, begging God to protect Meg, to give him judgment.