Safe At Hawk's Landing

“Good work, Charlotte. These details could be helpful.”

He quickly texted the analyst at the Bureau the information. Keenan Hart was thirty, smart, and obsessive about details.

She quickly responded with a return text.

Black van reported in the Waco kidnapping. Authorities already on the look for it. Researching tattoos now.

When he looked up, Charlotte’s eyes were closing. Sensing she was about to fade again, he hurried to ask his last question. “One more thing, Charlotte.”

She moaned softly. “Hmm?”

“Did all of the men speak English or did one of them speak another language?”

She twisted her head toward him as if she could see him, but the blankness glazed her eyes again. “The leader was really the only one who talked. He spoke English.”

“Did he have an accent?”

She frowned. “I don’t think so. Why? Do you think they’re foreign?”

His gut tightened. He’d suspected Columbian or Eastern European. But without witnesses to the other kidnappings, that was a guess.

His phone beeped with a text. Harrison.

Black cargo van spotted outside Tumbleweed at an abandoned warehouse. Meet me downstairs and we’ll check it out.

Hope made Lucas’s adrenaline spike, and he placed his hand over Charlotte’s. Her hand was small and delicate, and her skin felt soft, feminine.

Thankfully, she was tougher than she looked.

“Charlotte, I may have a lead on that van. Harrison and I are going to check it out. Get some rest.”

She nodded weakly although she was already drifting asleep.

He smiled at her, then sadly realized that even if she was awake, she couldn’t see him. The thought bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

All the more reason he’d track down these sons of bitches and put them away.

Determination kicking in, he hurried to the elevator, rode to the lobby and rushed outside to meet his brother.

Harrison was talking to Honey on the phone. When he hung up, emotions clouded his face. “I broke the news to Honey. She’s going to pick up some flowers, then visit Charlotte in a little while.”

They hurried to his brother’s SUV, and Harrison sped from the hospital parking lot. “Any more word on Charlotte’s condition?”

“No. She’s trying to be strong, but she’s hurting and scared.” Lucas tensed. “Doc says the blindness might be temporary. They have to wait on the swelling to go down. That might take a while. Days. Maybe weeks.”

Harrison’s expression turned grim, and they fell into silence as his brother maneuvered through town then veered onto the road leading to Dead Man’s Bluff.

This place held bad memories for them both.

“Those warehouses have been abandoned for so long I’d forgotten about them,” Harrison said.

Lucas nodded agreement.

But they would be the perfect place to hold the girls until they could move them to the buyers.

* * *

CHARLOTTE’S SHOULDER THROBBED, the pain intensifying as images of the kidnappers flashed through her mind. They had stolen the girls she was in charge of, girls she loved. Girls she was supposed to help.

The door squeaked. Her eyes flew open, but the black nothingness filled her vision.

Then a footstep. And another. So soft that she had to lie perfectly still to hear it.

“Lucas?”

A hushed sound. Breathing. Deep breathing. But no voice.

Terror seized her. “Agent Hawk? Harrison?”

No answer.

She reached for the call button, fumbling along the bed to find it.

The acrid odor of cigarettes wafted toward her.

Dear God, the leader of the kidnappers had smelled like cigarettes.

Had he come back to kill her?

Chapter Four (#u879bc957-ee39-5475-897c-9277cac85550)

Cold fear pressed against Charlotte’s chest. Lucas said that the men who’d taken her students had struck before and had never left a witness behind.

Had one of them come here to finish the job he’d begun?

She was stone-still and held her breath, hoping whoever was in the room would think she was unconscious and leave. If not for the scent of cigarette smoke and the fact that he hadn’t said anything, she might think it was a doctor.

But doctors identified themselves.

Footsteps padded softly. Every cell in her body tensed with anticipation. Her left arm was hooked to an IV. All he had to do was inject her with a drug that would seep into her system and she’d drift into oblivion. No one would ever be the wiser.

She did not want to die.

Another footstep. The tray table made a noise as he pushed it away from her.

His breath punctuated the silence. The bed jarred as he bumped it.

She finally found the call button and pressed it, praying the nurse or a staff member would come quickly.