No Place to Hide (23 page)

7:52 P.M.

Ian felt someone latch onto his left shoulder and pull him out of the back of the cab. “Jackie!” He tried to turn to see if she was hurt. Hard hands prevented him from moving.

“Get him in the van, I’ve got the girl.”

Ian felt the fog of shock begin to lift. Van? A van had hit them.

Someone carried Jackie in a fireman’s hold from the cab. Her eyes were closed and blood ran from a gash on her forehead. People tried to offer to help.

“Hey, put her down, you idiot! She could have a neck injury,” one bystander called.

The man carrying Jackie pulled a gun, turned, and fired above the crowd’s head. Screams echoed through his pounding head and the people vanished in the time it took to blink. Ian finally understood the men pulling them from the cab weren’t there to help them. In fact, they had probably caused the wreck.

The person who had him by the arm propelled him toward the van. Ian let him since Jackie was already in the back. His head spun and nausea pounded at him. Had he hit his head? Reality punched him.

If he landed in the back of that van, they were both dead. He gathered his strength as the gaping entrance to the back of the van yawned closer.

Hoping for the advantage of the element of surprise, Ian swung around with his elbow and caught the man behind him in the face. His attacker went down with a yell. Ian went after the next man, desperate to get to Jackie. He spun into a kick that was as second nature to him as breathing. The side of his foot caught the man in the chin.

Sirens screamed.

The two men Ian had attacked threw themselves into the back of the van. The vehicle peeled away from the curb and Ian stumbled after it. An officer leapt from his cruiser and pointed his weapon at Ian. “Police! Freeze! Hands in the air!”

Ian’s strength deserted him. His legs gave out and he dropped to his knees, slowly lifting his hands as he watched the van turn the corner.

9:15 P.M.

Her head pounded a merciless beat. Little people with jackhammers had taken over her skull and were ignoring her eviction notice. Jackie reached for the glass of water by her bed and frowned when her hand struck something solid. She blinked.

Darkness.

With one hand she reached up and rubbed her eyes. Something flaked off onto her fingers and she felt the gash in her forehead. She winced as sharp pain shot through her head.

She moved her other hand and felt something soft. Silky. Nausea swept over her and she swallowed hard.

Why did her head hurt? Why couldn’t she see?

“Walden will be here soon. He’ll take care of her. Come on.”

Who was there? She blinked, trying to see something.

Anything. Even a sliver of light would have helped. But there was nothing but darkness. Total, encompassing, breath-stealing darkness.

But she could hear the voices. “Hello?” She pushed herself up and her head cracked against a hard surface. She gasped. Bright colors spun before her eyes and she lay back down.

On a pillow.

Oh God, oh God, where am I? Are you there?
“Hello?” Her voice cracked on the word and she cleared her throat. “Hello?”

No one answered.

Think. Think!

The car wreck. The blinding flash of pain, then oblivion.

And now more darkness.

She beat on the wood overhead until her palms were bruised. Winded, she sucked in air and the horrifying thought that she could suffocate crossed her mind. She flipped on her side. Her head and neck protested the movement and she winced as she ran her hands down more wood.

Blinding terror filled her. She couldn’t get out. She banged on the side of the wood with her foot.

Again, again, again.

Her head pounded almost as hard as her heart.

She was in a box.

She felt the silk beneath her fingers again.

Felt the pillow cushioning her pounding head.

No, not a box.

Her breath whooshed from her lungs.

Her coffin.

9:20 P.M.
NEW YORK CITY FBI FIELD OFFICE

Elizabeth paced the floor. Ian sat across from her, looking bruised and battered from the wreck. However, the fire in his eyes said he wasn’t down for the count. Not by a long shot. An EMT had checked him over and suggested he go to the hospital. He’d refused.

“Where were they taking her?” she asked him again.

“I don’t know!” He slammed a fist onto the table. “If I knew, I’d tell you. You’ve got to go after her, track her somehow. If you don’t, they’ll kill her, then come back for me.”

“We’ve got people looking for her.”

“It’s not enough,” he whispered. His agony touched a spot in her that she’d thought she’d closed off a long time ago. But this case had been different than anything she’d dealt with. Not the case necessarily, but the people involved. Innocent people wrongly accused.

“Our computer forensics agent got into the tablet without any trouble. You were right.”

“What?”

“You were right about Wainwright. It’s all there. Emails about
setting you up to be the fall guy, talking about how much money they would lose if the plan doesn’t succeed. We were even able to connect the IP number to the emails. They came from several locations, but one of them was Wainwright’s office.”

“What about the other people on the email. Did you find out who they were?”

“All except one. We’re in the process of acquiring search and arrest warrants.”

“Which one?”

“The one we don’t know about?”

Ian gave an impatient nod.

“His email address is simply [email protected]. There’s no name attached to it.”

“Okay. So what now?”

“Every attempt our computer forensics people have made to trace it has come up empty. He knows how to cover his tracks.”

“And the code? There could be something in the code to tell us where she is. You’ve got to break it.”

“One of our most talented people is working on it. So far, your cousin has managed to figure out more than we have.”

Ian dropped his head into his hands.

A knock on the door caught their attention. Ian lifted his throbbing head and squinted. Another agent he hadn’t been introduced to stepped inside. Annoyance flashed across Elizabeth’s face. “What do you need, Sam?”

“Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve just had an interesting development in this case. Could I speak to you a moment?”

Elizabeth frowned and stood. She nodded to Ian. “Excuse me.”

Ian stood. “Jackie’s in trouble. We need to find her now!”
Didn’t they get it? He was wasting time trying to cooperate. He’d go after Jackie himself except he didn’t know where to start looking. And where were David and Adam? Were they looking for her? Of course they were. And if they had any news, they would have called him.

“We have agents looking for her and trying to track the van. We hope to have some answers soon.”

“Hope to?” He sighed. “Could I borrow a phone please or have mine back?” They’d taken his personal items when they’d brought him into the building.

“Looks like you’ve been cleared of all charges. There’s even a picture of the receipt from the purchase of the bomb materials that were planted in your home. There are pictures of everything. The man was an idiot to record all that stuff, but I’m not complaining. Made our job easier.” Elizabeth pulled her phone from her pocket. “Here. It’s a secure line.”

Ian dialed and David answered on the first ring. The door shut behind Elizabeth. “Did you find her?” Ian went to the door and pulled it open a crack. He could see Elizabeth and the man she’d called Sam standing in the hallway talking to two other agents. Probably the New York agents they were working with.

“We have a lot of the same capabilities as law enforcement when it comes to the ability to view traffic cams and that kind of thing,” David said. “I’m on the computer at the hotel searching. Adam’s tracking street cams. Do you have
any
idea where she could have been taken?”

“Why would I know that? Solve that code and maybe that will give us a hint.” He regretted the harsh words as soon as they escaped his lips. He closed his eyes. “Sorry, I’m just worried.”

“We all are.”

“I know. The FBI and local police are looking for her, but
I’m afraid they’re not going to find her. At least not alive. The longer she’s gone—”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Where’s Ron?”

“With Holly. And mobilizing his friends to help should we be able to let them know how.”

“How is Holly? Has she woken up?”

“Not yet. I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

David fell silent. “I know Holly wanted to tell you herself, but she has brain cancer, Ian.”

The floor tilted. Ian stumbled back to the chair he’d vacated and slumped into it. “What?”

“I’m sorry. They’ve called her parents down.”

“You were able to find them?”

“Yes.” He gave a small snort. “They were super easy to find in comparison to keeping you and Jackie hidden.”

The door opened. “I’ve got to go,” he told David.

“I’ll call back when I can. Don’t worry, we won’t stop looking for her until we find her.”

“Yeah.” He just prayed it wasn’t too late.

Elizabeth stepped inside. “We had someone come forward and tell us something about the case.”

“Who? What did he say?”

“Not he, she. Mrs. Bates, who’s been missing since she and her husband visited a funeral home. She said she’s been fanatically watching the news every chance she got.”

“What does she have to do with this case?”

“Her husband was abusive. She’s been waiting for just the right moment to run from him. At the funeral home, he went down to where they keep the bodies and she didn’t go. As soon as her husband walked out of the room, she did too. She got
in her car and ditched it, sliced her arm with a pocket knife to leave some blood . . . and walked away.”

“Okay.” Ian was confused and wished she’d get to the point.

“She said she saw Red Peters on the news and recognized him.”

“Red Peters?”

“The man you knocked out at the hotel and left as a gift for us to bring in.”

“Ah. And she recognized him?”

She stuck her hands in the front pockets of her coat. “He was killed in a prison brawl yesterday. We flashed his face on television hoping someone would come forward. The missing woman did.”

“And?” Ian wanted to shake the information from her.

“She said she saw him at Walden’s Mortuary.”

“Walden’s Mort—” Ian broke off and pulled the card from his pocket. “That’s where we were headed when we got T-boned.”

Elizabeth snatched the card from his hand and pulled out her phone.

9:30 P.M.

“Where’s Walden? Do you know how to fire this thing up?”

“Me? No way. I don’t even like being in this place. Creeps me out.”

Jackie blinked. The voices were back. How much longer did she have before her air ran out? How long had she been in there? And what did he mean, “Fire this thing up”?

Who was Walden? Wait a minute. Walden’s Mortuary? “Fire this thing up?” she whispered.

Her sluggish mind put it together.

She was in a coffin.

They were going to cremate her.

Alive.

She wanted to scream, to cry, to demand they let her out. And knew it was futile. They had put her in the coffin with the intention of killing her. By suffocation or cremation. They probably weren’t concerned which happened first. So . . . unless someone opened the lid to the coffin, she would die.

Very soon.

Jackie drew in a deep breath, savoring the feel of the oxygen filling her lungs. And then let the air out. She had to breathe shallow breaths to conserve her air. She had to give Ian or the FBI or someone time to figure out where she was.

So she had to control her panic and use as little of the oxygen as possible and pray whoever was supposed to turn on the retort didn’t arrive in time. She’d rather suffocate.

A tear slipped down her temple. “Actually, I don’t want to die, God,” she whispered. Then clamped her lips shut. Conserve the oxygen. She closed her eyes and imagined herself at home in her bed. Don’t think. Pray.

God, please tell me you haven’t abandoned me. Tell
me you love me. Tell me you know I’m
here. Tell me someone’s going to come get me
.
The tears continued to fall. She had to distract her mind. Dwelling on what was going to happen was simply going to send her further into uncontrollable panic mode. Which would send her into hyperventilating. Which would use up the oxygen that much faster. She drew in a shallow breath and let it out.

How much oxygen did she have?

Think about it. Don’t think about the cremation part. Do the math. She’d been a good student in school, excelling in math and science while letting the English grade slide. Social studies
had fascinated her because she loved learning about new places. Jackie corralled her thoughts. Math.

She vaguely remembered a math problem that had to do with how much oxygen was in a sealed container. She needed to know the volume, right? So volume was length times width times height, right? So how long was the coffin? No, not a coffin. Box. It was just a box. She needed to know the volume of a box. So if she was five feet six inches, that was sixty-six inches. The box was bigger than that. Not roomy, but . . .

Slowly, in painstaking slow motion, she moved until her feet touched the end. Maybe another foot and a couple of inches. Eighty-four inches total from head to foot. She reached up with her right hand to touch the lid and pressed with her left hand on the bottom. Maybe twenty-six inches to twenty-eight inches? A little more than two feet? That was it? The lid was close to her face.

Too close. Her breaths came faster. She couldn’t breathe!

Stop! Be still. Breathe. In. Out. She remembered the same feeling she’d had when she’d been buried under the manure. Breathe. Shallow breaths.

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Jackie stilled. Where had that thought come from? Her grandfather. She kept her eyes closed and pictured him sitting at the kitchen table, his Bible opened, his mouth moving in prayer.

Ian! Please
find me!

Her fingers closed into a fist as she remembered the feel of his hand around hers. She wanted to feel that again. She wanted to hug him. To kiss him. To tell him she never forgot him and had thought of him often over the past years.

Focus, Jackie. Finish the math problem. Eighty-four by twenty-eight by—she stretched her hands to feel from side to side—twenty-two? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?

So multiply the three numbers. She did the first two. Eighty-four by twenty-eight. Two thousand three hundred fifty-two. Then that times twenty-four. She pictured writing the numbers on the dry erase board in her senior math class. Fifty-six thousand four hundred and forty-eight. So the total volume would be fifty-six point . . . something cubic centimeters. Which would be around eight hundred and ninety liters.

Oh God, help me!

What was her body’s volume? She had to figure that out so she could subtract it from the total so she would know how much space she took up. How many liters was she? And how many liters of air did that leave if she—

Her brain froze. She couldn’t do it. At best she probably had a couple of hours. At worst—

God, I want to believe you’re there. Show me you’re with
me. I need you. Please get me out of here!