Neil attempted to look at Rick’s wound to see for himself if his friend was all right.
Rick shoved him away. “Go. Get the hell out of here.”
He stood, and shoved his hand into his pocket. “If something happens, call Blake. Tell him everything.”
“Go get Gwen and tell Blake yourself.”
Neil shoved the card into Rick’s hands anyway. “Go, Lieutenant.”
He nodded once, dropped his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Don’t f**king die.” Tears swam behind his lids.
“Get the hell out of here.”
Neil didn’t have to be told again.
Blake sat in the back of the town car a few miles from base. The rain slowed to a drizzle reflecting on his sour mood. He couldn’t remember the last time someone blew off a call from him.
He made a call to the major’s secretary and ended up talking to an answering machine. He left an urgent message, with shameless name-dropping littering the recording. Not that it mattered. Blake would call out the queen and the president if it would do him any good in locating his sister and Neil.
Minutes ticked by as impatience crawled up Blake’s spine. Carter was due to call anytime, hopefully to tell him that Max arranged his audience with the major.
When the phone rang, he didn’t bother to look at who the call was from before answering it.
“Carter?”
“Blake?”
Not Carter. “Neil?” His arms prickled and his mind went numb. “Neil?”
“Listen, Blake. I don’t have much time.”
“Where are you? Where’s Gwen?”
Neil didn’t answer his question. “I need you to write this down. Are you listening?”
The intensity of Neil’s voice was unlike anything Blake could remember hearing in the past. “I’m listening.”
“I need you to call a Major Blayney at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. Keep him on the phone.”
“Neil?”
“I need him distracted…you getting this?” Neil was rushed, not listening.
“I’m three miles off base, Neil.”
“You’re what?”
“Off base. Carter located your last commanding officer. He won’t take my call. I came here looking for you.”
Neil sighed. “Write down this number.” Neil rambled off nine digits. “His personal number. Call him. Keep him on the phone. I don’t care what you do…keep him on the phone.”
Blake’s stomach turned on itself. “Where’s Gwen?”
Neil hesitated. “Call him.”
Blake’s body grew cold.
Charles paced the floor above her head, his footsteps heavy and fast at times, slower at others. So slow in fact that she wondered if someone else was in the house. When the phone rang, she heard only one voice upstairs and it wasn’t someone new.
Gwen leaned against the wall of the basement surrounded by Annie’s art and the Blayney household Christmas lights.
She had no idea of the time, or what was happening above. To aid in her discomfort Charles cut the basement lights. He would have plunged her into darkness if not for the lights she’d managed to plug in herself. The laugh, as they say, was on him. Even the occasional squeak of a house mouse didn’t do much other than comfort her. She was alive, alert.
Surely Neil would realize something wasn’t right eventually. Behind her back, she twisted the beautiful ring he’d placed on her finger. The way he’d opened his soul to her was fresh in her memory. He had to be alive.
He had to be.
She banished the thought of anything bad befalling him and waited for Charles to make his next move.
The hours waned on, forcing her eyelids to close for short periods of time. Equal parts of her wanted something to happen, and for nothing to occur. The longer she sat in the basement the bigger the chance of something awful happening to Neil.
And that threat was a larger psychological torture than being locked in a basement with a madman as her jailer.
Her eyes were closed when she heard a lock click at the top of the stairs. The lights above her head blinked on, making her wince away from the sudden glow.
“What the?” Charles flew down the stairs faster than she could reach for the gun hidden on her leg. She managed to scramble to her feet, her eyes wide as he made a quick assessment of her basement decorations.
“What have you done?”
“Maaa miii elfff aa hoom,” she attempted to say under the gag in her mouth.
Charles was on her in seconds, the back of his hand slammed against her face and knocked her to the floor. Pain awakened her brain.
Charles stood over her, ran a hand calmly down his neck, stretching it. The only evidence of his anger of a moment ago was in the way he flared his nose as he drew in a breath.
He lifted her from the floor with one hand, and slammed her against the wall.
Stars flew in her head.
“Enjoy yourself?”
Gwen attempted to move her head away from his stare. He didn’t allow it. She gave in and stared him down. Every ounce of hatred filled her gaze. She’d spit at him if she could find an ounce of moisture in her mouth.
He grasped her chin in his fingers and squeezed. “Your brother came.”
Her heart kicked in her chest.
“What does he know?”
She mumbled behind the gag. Charles placed a finger between the material and her cheek and forced it from her lips.
“What?”
The ability to move her jaw together felt like heaven, regardless of the fact that the devil held her against the wall. Her dry tongue touched the roof of her mouth as she attempted to find moisture.
“What does he know?”
“I don’t know.”
He slapped her again. Moisture in her mouth came by way of a split lip.
Tears sprang to her eyes with the pain, but she refused to let them fall.
“What does he know?”
“I haven’t spoken with him.”
Charles moved closer. She wasn’t sure but she thought she smelled tobacco on his breath. “He knows you’re here.”
What could she say…she had no idea how Blake had found her. “Where is he?”
Charles let his hand slip to her throat, reminding her how easily he could snap it if he chose.
“On his way here.”
Hope sprang in her chest.
“You make one noise, one squeak down here and I’ll kill him. You got that?”
She nodded. He’d be so close. Maybe he’d sense something?
“One noise.”
Charles wrapped her mouth again, taking less care in securing the rag. He shoved her to the floor and left the room.