Dying for You

“For the time being, but I won’t be for long and neither will Lucie.” She hurriedly explained what had happened, not pausing until she had given Deke all the details.

“You have no idea who these men were or why they kidnapped Lucie…that is, why they kidnapped Lucie thinking she was you?”

“No idea whatsoever.”

“For your safety and Lucie’s, we have to keep the fact that they kidnapped the wrong woman a secret,” Deke told her.

“Yes, I’ve already figured that out. So how do we do that?”

“Do you have somewhere you can go for a few hours, somewhere no one will notice you or bother you? A movie theater or—”

“A church,” Cara said.

“A church would be perfect.”

“There’s one nearby. I can go there. But what then?”

“I’ll get in touch with Sawyer McNamara. Dundee’s has contacts all over the world. My guess is that they have someone there in San Luis. I’ll try to call you back and give you the name and a description of your contact person, but I’m going to give you an ID phrase you can use and the response to expect from your contact.” He recited the comment and the response. “This person will take you somewhere you’ll be safe until we can get to Ameca, hopefully by early morning.”

“Whoever kidnapped Lucie kidnapped her thinking they have a billionaire to bargain with,” Cara said. “I’m authorizing you to do whatever is necessary to meet their demands. Gray will be in charge of Bedell, Inc. temporarily and he and the board can authorize the release of whatever ransom is requested.”

“Let’s not put the cart before the horse,” Deke told her. “We don’t know for sure money is the reason she was abducted. Don’t forget that Cara Bedell is supposed to make a multimillion-dollar deal with one of two oil companies vying for her favor.”

“Oh, God, I as good as told Tomas Castillo today at lunch that I would probably sign with Delgado Oil. You don’t think Castillo ordered my kidnapping, do you?”

“There’s no way to know for sure. Not yet. That’s why you cannot trust anyone down there and it’s the reason no one, and I mean no one, even Grayson Perkins, can know that you weren’t the one kidnapped.”

Cara started to protest, and then in a clearly lucid moment, she realized that Deke was right. Gray might let the truth slip and if he did…

“I understand,” Cara said. “I’ll go to the church and wait for your call or for a person who can reply correctly to my comment.”

“Repeat it for me.”

“I’m not Catholic. I hope it’s all right that I’ve come here to pray. That’s what I say. And the correct response is I’m not Catholic, either, but I come here every night and pray to live to be a hundred and three, just as my grandmother did.”

“Cara, be careful. For now, you’ve got not only your own life in your hands, but Lucie’s, too.”

“Do you think they’ll hurt her?”

Deke cleared his throat. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On the reason they kidnapped her.”

LUCIE DIDN’T STRUGGLE against the ropes that bound her hands and feet nor did she try to chew through the rag effectively gagging her. Her kidnappers were not amateurs. It was obvious that they had done this type of thing before and were taking no chances. Shoved into the trunk of an older model Ford Taurus, she had no idea in which direction the driver was headed. They would take her somewhere isolated and secluded, which meant in the basement of a building or out in the country. She estimated that they’d been on the road for nearly an hour, but she couldn’t be sure of the time. An hour’s drive meant that they had left San Luis. Since the ocean was to the east and the border was less than fifty miles north, that meant either south or west. The nearest village to the south was…? Think, damn it, Lucie, think. Mundaca. If they went west, there were miles of tropical forests and dozens of small villages. But what if, for some reason, they hadn’t left San Luis and were simply driving around the city?

Either way, it didn’t matter. She had no way to contact anyone. She was on her own. Escape might not be an option, so she had two immediate goals: stay alive and keep her abductors in the dark about her true identity. She had to count on Cara knowing what to do.

Please, God, let her call Deke. And let her stay out of sight until he sends help.

SAWYER FINISHED his workout in the basement gym, which he had designed himself. He prided himself on staying in tip-top physical condition and he had to admit that every year past thirty-five had increased the struggle. He stripped out of his jogging shorts and stepped into the steam room. He sat down, leaned back and relaxed as the warm steam enveloped him. Nothing of any importance in his life had changed in the past few weeks. He had maintained his routine—work five days a week, personal time on the weekends. For the past three weeks, he had taken a different lady out every Friday and every Saturday night, dating more often than he usually did. At forty, he went in for quality over quantity in most aspects of his life, including sex.