Beneath Still Waters

The phone began ringing.

Come on, come on, pick it up, she urged.

His voice mail kicked in after the fifth ring.

Now Annja was starting to worry. Doug was almost never out of contact; he even took his cell phone into the bathroom with him. The fact that she couldn’t reach him anywhere was starting to feel suspicious.

He’s just on the other line, she told herself. Give him a minute and call him back.

She did so, and this time the phone was answered on the third ring.

“Doug! Thank heavens!”

But it wasn’t him.

“Annja?” a female voice asked tentatively.

“Who’s this?”

“Karen, Doug’s assistant.”

Of course. Now that he had an assistant he was apparently too important to answer his own phone.

“I need to speak to Doug, Karen. Is he in?”

“No. I haven’t seen him since you left for vacation,” she said.

What? Three days? Maybe longer?

“Do you know where he is?” Annja asked.

With a sudden feeling of dread, she knew what the answer was going to be before it even came out of Karen’s mouth.

“No. That’s why I’m so glad you called. I was hoping you could help me find him.”

It was a bad sign that Karen didn’t know where Doug was.

A really bad sign.

“I’m sorry. I’ve got to go,” she told Karen, hanging up the phone before the other woman could say anything more and fighting the sense of panic that was quickly filling her as she frantically dialed the original number.

Just as before, it rang three times and then was answered.

“I’m listening,” Annja told the person on the other end.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_e0a158ba-f18d-50ec-8b33-a96bec6ff8ac)

“Perhaps now you will take me seriously, yes?”

Annja did her best to hang on to her temper. When she got scared, she had a tendency to get irritated and if this guy really had Doug she didn’t want to tick him off by blowing her cool.

“Where’s Doug? What have you done to him?”

“Done? I haven’t done anything,” the person said. “Yet.”

It was just one word, but it had the power to freeze her blood in her veins.

The kidnapper went on. “I have simply persuaded Mr. Morrell that it was in his best interests to get in touch with you to convey my desire to discuss a business arrangement. He had initially declined my request, but very quickly saw the error of his ways. I hear that you are on vacation. Are you enjoying Jamaica?”

Annja sensed that time was of the essence, and she had no interest in bantering with this guy. She ignored his question about Jamaica, choosing instead to demand, “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Morrell was right about your temper, I see,” the man said, infuriating Annja even further. She didn’t like the position she was in, with all of the control in the kidnapper’s hands, but there was nothing she could do until she knew what he wanted. For now, she was going to have to grin and bear it, something she wasn’t very good at doing.

Her right hand reached into thin air and plucked a broadsword seemingly out of nowhere. The blade had once belonged to Joan of Arc, had, in fact, been broken asunder on the day and hour of her execution. More than five hundred years later it had been miraculously re-formed in Annja’s presence and she had become the blade’s current bearer.

The sword could appear or disappear at her will, and when she wasn’t using it, it rested in a mystical place just outside the bounds of reality that she called the otherwhere. It could not be taken from her against her will and over the years had seemed to impart some extra bit of strength, dexterity and speed to her physical movements when the situation demanded it. She had become an expert in its use and, quite literally, didn’t go anywhere without it.

Having the blade in hand helped calm her and kept her from raging at the maniac who had snatched one of her friends. He didn’t know it yet, whoever he was, but having her as an enemy was not a good thing.

“Let me worry about my temper,” she told the man, “and you can tell me what it is that you want. Clearly there’s something you need me to do, otherwise you wouldn’t have gone through the hassle of kidnapping my television producer.”

“You are as perceptive as your reputation suggests, Miss Creed. That bodes well for your ability to carry out my requests.”

Annja didn’t like the “s” on the end of that word, for it suggested the caller had multiple things for her to do in order to free Doug, but she kept her mouth shut and waited for him to continue.

“There is a package waiting for you at the front desk. Retrieve it but do not open it until you are back in your room. When you have examined what is inside, call me back at the number I’m giving you.”

The caller recited a new phone number, and Annja quickly memorized it.

But she wasn’t ready to be a pawn in someone else’s game quite yet. At least, not a pawn that didn’t attempt to retain a bit of its own free will.

“Why don’t you just tell me now, and I’ll grab the package later?”

It was the wrong thing to do.

There was silence on the end of the phone for a moment, followed by a shriek of pain that seemed to go on forever.

“Hello? Hello? Are you there? What are you doing to him?” she cried.

The voice returned. “When I give an order, I expect it to be carried out without negotiation or discussion. Each time that doesn’t happen, Mr. Morrell will pay the price for your obstinacy. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Annja replied through gritted teeth.

“Then what are you waiting for? Go get that package.”

And with that, the line went dead.

Annja sent the sword back into the otherwhere and hurried out of her room, clutching the phone tightly in one hand. She didn’t dare put it down just in case the stranger called again; she didn’t know what he’d do to Doug if he called and she wasn’t right there to answer it.