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“I’m okay,” she said, but leaned into the help he offered.
The doctor said goodbye and gestured down the hall to the exit.
“If you want to go back to the hotel, we can go to the station tomorrow,” Luke suggested as he led Natalie to the checkout desk. He recognized the exhaustion setting in, along with the shock from the night’s events, and didn’t want to keep pushing her.
But Natalie shook her head, determined. “Let’s just get it over with.”
* * *
More than an hour later, Luke and Natalie had finally been fingerprinted and then escorted to the lobby of the police station, where Officer Perez was waiting to transport them back to the hotel. A storm had set in, rain pouring in windy sheets outside the ancient building. The squad car was less than thirty yards from the station’s entrance, but they were all drenched by the time they reached it.
Officer Perez opened a back-passenger door and gestured for them to slide in just as someone called to him in Spanish from the far edge of the lot. Luke followed Natalie into the car, peering across the seat and out into the dark parking lot, where a car with flashing hazards was parked at an odd angle with its hood popped.
“A moment, please,” Officer Perez said, closing the door and jogging away from the cruiser. Luke watched the officer run through the downpour until he disappeared behind the open hood of the car. Normally, he’d get out and offer some help, but the safest place for Natalie was in this car, and he didn’t plan on leaving her alone.
Now was probably a good time to bring Roman up to speed. He wouldn’t be thrilled to start his Sunday with this news, but he’d be unhappier still if Luke delayed reporting it.
“I’m giving my boss a call,” he told Natalie, pulling up Roman’s number on his phone.
“Luke,” Roman answered on the second ring, his voice alert. “Everything okay? I was just about to call you.”
“I’ve got things under control,” Luke assured Roman, surprised at the edge in his boss’s voice. “Natalie’s safe. But we’ve run into a problem.” He proceeded to fill Roman in on all that had transpired that night and their plan moving forward. “As soon as we get her passport, we’ll reschedule our return flights,” he added.
“My crew’s already getting the jet ready,” Roman said. “I don’t want her traveling on a commercial flight when we don’t know who this guy is.”
Luke leaned forward, pressed the phone closer to his ear. The connection wasn’t great, but he was pretty sure he’d heard Roman correctly. “You’re already loading up? How did you know we—”
“There’ve been some developments here,” Roman cut in, his voice deadly serious. “Natalie’s ex, Kyle Paxton, is MIA. And the State police want to bring Natalie in for questioning.”
“Hold on a minute,” Luke said. “I’m putting you on speaker. Natalie’s here with me. It’s probably better if she hears the news firsthand.”
What news? she mouthed, her brow furrowed.
“Natalie, how are you holding up?” Roman asked.
“I’ve been better, but Luke’s taking good care of me,” she responded, her voice tense. “What’s going on, Roman?”
“Kyle is missing,” he said bluntly.
“What...?” She shook her head, disbelief in her expression.
“His parents were the last people to see him, the morning of the wedding,” Roman said. “When he didn’t show up at the church, his parents drove back to his town house. The place had been torn up.”
“Torn up?” she asked faintly.
“Ransacked. Car’s missing, too.”
Natalie was silent, bewilderment written all over her face.
“Have you heard from him?”
“Nothing but a text saying he couldn’t go through with the wedding. He was sorry. That was it. What are the police thinking?”
“They don’t have much information yet. They’re anxious to speak to you.”
“I’m not sure what I have to add to the conversation.”
“You’re the closest person to Kyle,” Roman pointed out. “Any information you can offer will help the investigation.”
“We’ll get the passport as soon as we can, and I’ll get her on the plane home,” Luke said.
“Keep me posted.”
Roman disconnected, and Luke shoved the phone back in his pocket.
Next to him, concern darkened Natalie’s eyes, her hands clenched together in her lap. Then she dropped her gaze, whether in grief or fear, Luke couldn’t tell. Her short blond waves hid her profile.
He was quiet for a moment, allowing her time to process the news. Meanwhile, his thoughts raced ahead. He didn’t believe for one minute that Kyle’s disappearance was random and unrelated to the attack on Natalie. But what was the connection? He didn’t have much background on Kyle—only that he was a public criminal defense lawyer. Could he have made a dangerous enemy? Or was Kyle the enemy? Could he have trashed his own apartment before pulling a disappearing act? Maybe, if he had something to hide. But how did Natalie fit into the equation?
“Kyle showed up for the rehearsal dinner, right?” Luke asked her finally.
“Yes,” she said without looking up, her voice tired.
“Did he seem like himself?”
She shrugged. “I guess. He was tired, but we both were. It’d been a long week with our jobs and the wedding prep.”
“Did he go straight home after the dinner?”
“There was a bachelor party. He said he’d rather go home and get a good night’s sleep before the wedding, but he didn’t want to let the guys down.”
“Do you know where they went? Who he was with?”
“A restaurant and bar in Fells Point. Just his groomsmen. It would have been a pretty tame group.”
Luke was skeptical about the idea of a tame group of young men at a bar in Fells Point on a Friday night, but decided to keep that thought to himself.
“What about the past few weeks leading up to the wedding? Was he acting differently at all?”
Natalie sighed and shifted in her seat, tugging the seat belt away from her injured shoulder. “Not that I noticed. But, like I said, we had a lot going on.”
She still hadn’t met his eyes, and Luke suspected she was withholding details she didn’t want to share.
“He certainly wasn’t acting strange enough for me to suspect he planned to call the wedding off,” she added.
“When did you get the text?”
“Yesterday morning. Fifteen minutes before the ceremony.”
Natalie rubbed the back of her neck with both hands. Frustration? Grief? She finally let her hands drop and turned to look Luke in the eyes. “It was bizarre,” she said, and there was fire in her eyes. “I mean, he had all the opportunity in the world to call things off the night before, and all morning, too—but to wait until just before the ceremony...”
Her thoughts echoed Luke’s, but they couldn’t do much in the way of investigating until they got back stateside.
“Did anyone else see him that morning?”
“I don’t know. He was supposed to meet up with his groomsmen and drive to the church together. They showed up without him, and no one mentioned to me he wouldn’t be coming.”
“How many groomsmen? And how well do you know them?”
“Three, and not that well. His college buddy, Trent. A cousin named Lee. And you probably know his friend Jordan—he works at Shield?”
“He could be a good source when we get back.”
A form finally emerged from behind the car across the lot, and Officer Perez jogged back in their direction, his head down as he slogged through the heavy rain.
The driver’s door opened and the officer climbed in without a glance back, his hair dripping, his tan uniform soaked to a dark brown. He started up the car and pulled out of the lot in a hurry, wheels skidding along wet pavement.
Next to Luke, Natalie grabbed on to the side of the door to keep herself from sliding across the seat into him, and sudden alarm fired up his adrenaline.
The interior of the vehicle was all dark shadows, the man’s face indistinguishable in the rearview, but when they passed under a lone street lamp, Luke knew they were in trouble. Officer Perez wasn’t driving the cruiser.
The driver was young and clean-shaven—and clearly on some sort of mission. Luke considered the possibility that Perez had traded out with another officer—maybe a rookie with a chip on his shoulder? He did appear to be wearing the uniform...
But something wasn’t right, and as the vehicle climbed a winding hill, wipers slashing against sheets of rain, he tried to take stock of the situation. Luke didn’t know the terrain, but he did know they hadn’t even once traveled downhill, and the route wasn’t familiar.
“Excuse me, Officer,” he said, as if he hadn’t realized what had happened.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, but said nothing.
“I think we might have missed a turn back there,” Luke said. “We’re staying at the Riu de Sueños.”
“Road is blocked,” the guy answered gruffly, his accent thick. The road ahead curved sharply left, but the man barely slowed, taking the corner hard. Natalie slid into Luke’s side, her hand bracing against the seat in front of her.
“Hey, we’re not in a hurry. Take it easy,” Luke said, forcing his voice to sound relaxed even as their reality became alarmingly clear: the cruiser had been carjacked.
The man let up on the gas, the whites of his eyes flashing in the rearview mirror.
“Right, right,” he said.
Visibility was low, the dim glow of the car’s headlights fighting with the heavy rain. It was an older model cruiser, with thick cage wiring separating the back seat from the driver. No way to get to the driver, and it would be too dangerous to try to stop the car, anyway.
They didn’t have many options out here, but if he waited too much longer, getting back down the mountain would be difficult. If they escaped now, they could take cover in the trees, call for help.
He tapped Natalie’s finger to get her attention. “Follow my lead,” he whispered. Then loud enough for the driver to hear, “Natalie, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
Her brow furrowed, but she caught on. “No,” she said, her hands coming to her abdomen. “I...feel sick.”
“We need to pull over for a minute,” Luke said to the driver.
“Okay. Next place I find.”
Natalie moaned next to Luke, clutching her stomach.
“We can’t wait,” Luke insisted. “Pull over now!”
But the car didn’t slow, confirming Luke’s suspicions that their driver was on a mission—and it wasn’t to get them safely back to the hotel.
Natalie glanced at him, her expression giving way to fear. Then she put her hand to her mouth. “I think I’m about to be sick!” she said, and doubled over.
“Pull over!” Luke yelled to the driver. “She needs to get out!”
Natalie moaned loudly, and the driver finally swerved to the right and slammed on the brakes. They pitched forward, both throwing out their arms to keep from hitting the seats in front of them. The driver unlocked the car, glancing at them in the mirror, but not turning back.
Maybe he thought he’d fooled them. That they hadn’t noticed he’d switched places with Perez. Luke would use that to his advantage if he could.
Luke nodded to Natalie, and she didn’t hesitate.
She yanked on the handle and jumped out of the car, running behind a thick copse of trees, out of sight. Luke scooted to the door, planting his feet on the wet ground and waiting for the driver to make a move. With Natalie safely out of harm’s way, he’d have a better shot at taking the guy down. He watched the driver in his periphery, saw him shift in his seat. Getting a weapon? Luke didn’t have any weapons, but he would be ready. He shifted to the edge of the seat, keeping his peripheral vision on the driver.
But the driver didn’t make a move.
Luke considered his options. If the driver thought he still had them fooled, that could buy them some time. Making a run for it may be a safer option than confronting a potentially armed criminal in the middle of nowhere. If Luke got taken down, Natalie would be on her own.
“I’ll just go check on her,” Luke said, making his decision and emerging from the vehicle into the pouring rain.
He quickly covered the ground between the car and the foliage Natalie had disappeared behind and found her crouched by a thick tree trunk. “Let’s move,” Luke whispered, grasping her hand and leading her deeper into the thick forest. They treaded quietly, low to the ground, the echo of rain eating up any sound they made.
Luke figured they had about a minute or two before the guy came looking, but he overestimated. They’d barely covered twenty yards when a voice echoed too close.
“Hey!”
Natalie’s hand tightened on Luke’s and they picked up their pace. Luke didn’t think they’d been seen, but he couldn’t be sure.
A thin beam of light shone into the forest, just missing them as Luke pulled Natalie behind a massive fallen tree.
“Stay here.”
He started to leave, but she grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
“My job.” He pried her hand off his arm. “Stay low and don’t move from this spot.”
Leaving her there, Luke circled back toward the road. If he could stay out of the guy’s view, he could take him by surprise, turn the tables on him.
It didn’t take him long to spot the man, his dark figure plunging forward into the woods, his flashlight moving in an organized search pattern. Luke ducked behind a thick patch of shrubs, watching the beam of light track for them. What was this guy’s game? And what had happened to Officer Perez? Were the police somehow involved in the crimes against Natalie? That seemed far-fetched, but he couldn’t discount the idea. He waited for the flashlight beam to pass by him again before continuing. His approach would have to be timed perfectly. He wouldn’t do Natalie any good lying dead in the middle of the woods.
The beam of light stopped, backtracked.
Homed in on the heavy fallen tree Natalie was hiding behind.
Luke’s hands clenched into fists, praying Natalie’s cover hadn’t been blown.
But footsteps sloshed closer, louder, faster. He peered around the edge of the shrubs, saw the man heading straight for Natalie’s location—flashlight in one hand, gun in the other.
She’d been seen.
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