Secret Intentions

She made herself focus. No knife in her bra, but did she have something else she could use to slide through the narrow slit between the box and the lid? Maybe her earrings? They were made of copper, long and dangly, but flat and thin as well, as thin as the blade of a knife. She wasn’t sure they were substantial enough to give her the leverage she needed, but it was worth a shot, wasn’t it?

She took off one of her earrings, found the narrow crack between the lid and the box, and slid the copper bangle carefully into the space, moving it along until it hit resistance. Repositioning the earring, she pushed and felt something give.

Excitement bubbling in her chest, she pushed on the top of the box, testing its give. Was it her imagination or did it actually shift upward?

She wriggled down the box, probing with the earring until she met another point of resistance around the middle of the box. She repeated her earlier action, cursing when the copper earring snapped into two pieces, one remaining in her hand while the other slid through the crack and disappeared.

Sending up a prayer, she pulled the other earring from her ear and slipped it through the crack. This time, the obstruction gave way. She tested the box again. Definitely more give—through the blurry tears still burning her eyes, she saw gloomy half-light filter through the widening crack.

She had to completely shift positions to get to the final latch, wriggling until her head ended up where her feet had been. After a brief pause to catch her breath, she took care as she probed the third latch, acutely aware that if the earring broke this time, she was out of tools. The copper earring found the obstruction and she pushed against it cautiously. It gave, finally, and she laid her head back, shaking from nerves and the burning pain of pepper spray still stinging her eyes and skin.

If she’d indeed opened the final latch, the top of the box should swing open fully. All she had to do was make it happen.

Her heart pounding like a timpani in her ears, she reached up and gave the top of the box a sharp push. It opened more quickly than she anticipated, the lid swinging back and banging hard against the floor of the truck.

She froze in place, wondering if her captors had heard the noise. But the engine sound didn’t change. They were still moving.

She sat up slowly, peering through the film of tears streaming from her eyes. She could make out just enough to see that the interior of the truck was nearly as dark as the interior of the box had been. With shaking hands, she pushed herself up to her feet, alarmed by the violent trembling in her legs. The truck hit a bump and she fell out of the box, landing so hard on her side that she couldn’t breathe for a few seconds.

Finally able to suck air into her burning lungs, she pushed herself to her hands and knees and crawled around the truck, trying to get an idea of how large her moving prison was. She seemed to be in a vehicle about the size of a small moving truck—large enough to haul furniture or other large items but considerably smaller than a big rig. At the back was a pair of double doors, the narrow space between them delineated by a faint strip of light. On the right side of the truck, there was the outline of another door.

She felt along the flat surface of the door, her heart sinking. There was no handle on this side of the door. She checked the other door and found no handle there either. And even if there had been, she realized, her captors would have firmly latched the door on the outside to keep her from escaping.

There was no way out.

Chapter Two

About a hundred yards ahead, the Audiovisual Assets truck pulled off the road into a gas station and parked in front of one of the pumps. In his ear, Jesse heard Evie’s cell phone ring once before a deep voice came on the line. “Cooper?”

Great. Evie’s father, General Baxter Marsh. Not one of Jesse’s biggest fans. “Yes, sir. I was hoping Evie had turned up.” He slowed near the gas station, watching the truck’s driver and passenger disembark from the cab and walk into the food mart. Jesse parked on the other side of the gas pump.

“No sign of her.” Marsh sounded worried. “What’s going on, Cooper?”

“I told you the wedding was targeted.”

“I hired security.”

“Sir, I have to go. I’ll call back.” He hung up, aware his abrupt goodbye would hardly endear him to the general, and stepped out of the car. The truck blocked his view of the food mart, which meant it also hid him from view of anyone inside.

This might be his only chance to look inside that truck.

He eyed the cab, making sure there wasn’t anyone else inside before he shifted his attention to the trailer part of the truck. On the passenger side facing him was a door set into the side of the trailer box. No padlock, just a sliding latch with a metal screw threaded through the latch to prevent it from being opened from the inside.

Interesting.

He pulled his SIG SAUER P220 from his hip holster and darted a quick look around the cab of the truck, trying to catch a glimpse of the truck’s passengers inside the store. But the plate-glass windows were a mirror, bouncing his own reflection back at him. He scooted behind the cover of the truck again and took a deep breath as he eased the screw from the latch.

He swung the door open, wincing as it made a creaking noise. He listened for sound from inside, but anything he might have heard was masked by the traffic noise behind him. He was going to have to risk taking a look. Edging closer, he stuck his head inside the truck.

Out of the darkness, a foot slammed against his forehead, knocking him backward into the gas pump. As he struggled to keep his feet, a small, half-naked figure leaped from the truck and tried to dart away.

He caught a slender bare arm and held his assailant in place, despite her fierce struggle. She was small, curvy and deliciously hot, and for a second, all sensible thought leaked out of his head as his body reacted to finding her soft body pressed so intimately to his.

The flailing, red-faced creature was Evie Marsh. Her eyes were swollen nearly shut, but that didn’t keep her from pounding him with her fists and feet as she tried to escape his grasp.

He shook her. “Evie, it’s Jesse.”

She froze, her body flattening against his, sending his head reeling again. “Jesse?” Her voice was a painful rasp.

He stared at her streaming eyes and dragged his mind out of his jeans. “What did they do to you?”

“Pepper spray,” she growled. “Get me out of here now!”

He darted another quick look around the cab of the truck. The door to the food mart was open, the two men from the truck emerging with large cups of coffee. The driver locked eyes with Jesse and went instantly on alert.

“Go!” Jesse half carried Evie across the gas-pump island to his car and shoved her into the passenger seat. Driven by the sound of pounding footsteps racing across the gas station lot toward him, he slid across the hood and half dived behind the steering wheel.

So much for a clean getaway.

He jammed the key into the ignition, bracing himself for gunshots that didn’t come. Leaving the gas station in a hurry, he turned in front of an oncoming car, barely escaping a collision in a flurry of squealing brakes and a few choice gestures from the other driver.

In the rearview mirror, he spotted the truck fifty yards back, barreling toward them. He slammed the accelerator to the floor.

“Are they behind us?” Evie turned in the passenger seat, squinting.

“No way can that truck catch us.” The extra weight of the truck would give Jesse the advantage, but if he didn’t keep other vehicles between him and the truck, a high-powered rifle could quickly even the playing field.

He also had the advantage of knowing the back roads of Chickasaw County better than their pursuers, whipping the Ford Taurus down a pothole-pocked blacktop road. The road cut past Mill Pond, where he’d caught one of the biggest bluegills he’d ever seen, and twisted up the southern face of Gossamer Mountain. Over the hill lay Gossamer Lake and home.

He checked the rearview mirror frequently. No sign of the truck.

“Do you have any water?” Evie tried to stifle a cough.

Jesse reached into the backseat to retrieve the bag of supplies he’d packed for his stakeout. He handed Evie a bottle of water from the bag, and she flushed her face and eyes. “Someone grabbed me at the church. Sprayed me right in the face with pepper spray. I couldn’t even catch my breath long enough to yell for help.”

“How about now? You breathing okay?”

“Mostly.” She coughed again. “I’m better.”

He pulled out his phone and dialed his brother Rick’s cell number.

Rick answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”

Jesse caught his brother up on what had happened. “I’ve got Evie, but I’m not sure I should take her back to the church. Can you call Evie’s cell number? Someone will answer and you can tell them Evie’s safe.”

“I’m not ruining Rita’s wedding!” Evie protested.

Jesse slanted a quick look at her. “That can’t be a consideration, Evie. You know that.”