The Confidence Man [Closed]

"Thanks Garry, I've no idea what the hell's wrong with it. I think you're gonna have your work cut out for you," grinned Alex apologetically, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suit.

Garry Hale, the I.T Manager for the department got up off his chair, his beer belly straining against the thin fabric of his shirt. How many hours a day did the poor bastard spend in here, thought Alex. This dark little office with one narrow window, surrounded by the fluorescent glow of computer screens and the electronic blinking of lights. Quite a few, by the looks of the polystyrene coffee cups and fast-food wrappers strewn over the desk.

"Huh, I doubt it," Hale grumbled in reply, clearly resenting Alex's cheerfulness. He placed a set of meaty fingers on the handle of the door and pulled it open, light from the corridor outside flooding into the cramped room. He stepped forward to leave.

"Oh, and Garry? Mind if I use your computer to check my email? I'm expecting an important-"

"Yeah, yeah. That's fine," he said, waving a chubby hand at him. "Just don't answer the door if anyone knocks. Teagarden was down here the other day, checking on that little princess of his down the corridor. Technically I shouldn't let anyone else in here. Huh, technically. Technically I shouldn't take a lunch break longer than forty minutes..."

Alex waited until the door clicked to. The instant the wood touched the frame, his entire demeanour changed from one of bemused apology to absolute concentration. Quickly, he went over to Hale's computer, his hands deftly moving across the keyboard.

For all the other man's confidence in his technological abilities, Alex knew for a fact that Hale would downstairs in his office for at least half an hour. The virus he'd downloaded onto his computer was one of the nastiest ones he'd been able to find. Not even a system restore would be able to fix it. Nah, he'd have to reinstall the whole operating system and every single program on the computer. Alex knew this because he'd tested it out on his laptop at home last night and spent the rest of the evening doing just that.

Now... On with business. Just five minutes before, he'd gone over to Accounts and smiled his most flirtatious smile at Sophie, the mousey graduate at the desk closest to the door.

"Hey, Sophie could I ask a favour?" he'd said, standing a little closer than usual to her.

"Oh, Alex? Sure, of course," she'd stammered, colour rising high on her cheeks.

"Mind if I check my email? My computer's screwed up; some virus or something, and Garry's about to come down and fix it. He said it could take a while..."

"Of course!" she'd repeated, standing up quickly to let him sit down. "Er- Is it a busy day?"

"Yeah, doing the auditing for the new shipment in yesterday. What a mess... I could really do with a coffee." He paused, pretending to think. "Wanna go and grab some for both of us in the canteen? Here, I'll give you some money; meet me back up here? I should be done by then..." he added, handing her a ten dollar note from the wallet in his pocket before she could answer.

"Really? Oh, me too. I could use a break! I'll- I'll see you there in a bit!" she replied, as if she could scarcely believe her luck. The middle-aged woman sitting opposite rolled her eyes as she hurried out.

Of course, Alex hadn't checked his email. Instead, he'd signed on and downloaded key-logging software. When Sophie came back to discover a post-it with a scrawled excuse (something about a phone-call from a manufacturer) on it, she would have logged back into her account, the software recorded her every key-press which were then uploaded back onto the web.

Sure enough, he went online there they were. Username and password- Nibbles; it had to be the name of her cat. He keyed it in. Now all that was left was the password of Richard Teagarden himself. After coming up with various elaborately-staged plans that had never come to fruition, Alex had finally resorted to guessing. A couple of weeks ago, he'd cracked it: it was his daughter's birthday. Really, it was too obvious.

Then he was in. The accounts from the last twelve months of the Imports Division of Richard Teagarden's stuffed-toy empire. Accounts that just happened to include a few that had made oddly regular transactions to off-shore bank-accounts, accounts which, as Alex had accidentally discovered four months ago, funded a heroin-smuggling racket out of Thailand via shipments of toys destined for the playrooms of the baby sons and daughters of America. Oh God, the day he'd found that out might have been the happiest day of his life. The sheer scale of it! Millions and millions of dollars were distributed between these accounts. Millions of dollars which would soon be Alex's.

All it took was a few clicks of his mouse and the transferrals were set up. 17 million dollars to be distributed between thirteen different accounts under thirteen different names in thirteen different countries. That was 1.3 million per account. And every account would have to be closed in person by Alex with a false passport as identification in order to transfer them into a final central account. But he didn't mind. A round-the-world holiday was exactly the kind of thing he needed right now and it made him a hell of a lot harder to be tracked down.

He glanced at the long list of thirteen names, thirteen countries and, with a grin into the dimness, tapped 'Enter'. Nothing happened. Then a box flashed up: 'Server Error 1.098: Secure transfer incompatible'.

Damn it! He'd forgotten to change Hale's computer over to the other server. He couldn't transfer the money until he did that. The whole process had only taken ten minutes; he still had time to go to the server room down the corridor and change over the cables. Quickly, he slipped out of the I.T Manager's office and headed back the way he'd come.

The janitorial closet was dingy at best, and the whole room smelled like the mop in the corner was starting to mildew. It was small and gray, with metal shelves along the back wall, filled with bottles marked “Windex” and “Pledge” and “Bleach”. An extra gray janitor’s jumpsuit hung from a peg on the wall, and in the corner was an assortment of brooms, mops and dust pans. Serena looked into it surreptitiously, then peeked around to make sure no one was watching her. She felt like there were eyes on her back, but that was nothing new. People loved watching the boss’s daughter, the royal fuck up of the Teagarden name, no doubt wondering what sort of shenanigans she’d land herself in next. The coast was clear and she quickly stepped inside, quietly shutting the door behind her. There was a waist-high stack of boxes in one corner of the unpleasantly lit room. The long, tube shaped lights- were those fluorescent? Or incandescent, thought Serena- were flickering ever so slightly. Still, the room would do.

Serena used an empty, overturned bucket to climb on top of the boxes, which served as her makeshift perch. The boxes, which were printed with the Teagarden Toys logo- a teddy bear holding a daisy- sagged under her weight, but didn’t collapse. It felt like something dense, maybe paper towel rolls, were packed inside.

The woman dug around in her purse, scraping the bottom with paint-chipped nails, a frown creasing her forehead as she failed to find what she was looking for. Finally her fingertips brushed against the cardboard of a cigarette pack and she pulled it out, immediately putting one between her lips. She scrambled through her large, disorganized purse and came upon a lighter, which she expertly flicked. The end of her cigarette glowed to life and she took a long draw, closing her eyes as the smoke filled her mouth and lungs. Her head fell back, her brown ponytail swinging behind her ever so slightly. It was the little things in life, thought Serena. It was taking five damn minutes to smoke a cigarette in the janitor’s closet so your snooping coworkers wouldn’t know. It was spiking your coffee and letting yourself have just a little bit of a buzz through the day. It was sleeping with your manager, then watching him get fired once your father found out.

The door suddenly creaked open, and in the doorway stood Ellen Fortenberry, one hand a wide, out-thrust hip. Childbearing hips, thought Serena. Oh wait, Ellen already had kids, she thought, then blinked, realizing she was too late to hide her cigarette. God damn, she thought with a sigh, taking another long drag. She hadn’t even reached the half way point.

“This is a non-smoking building, Serena,” Ellen reminded her, her voice slightly nasal. She was a fairly attractive woman, but Serena couldn’t help thinking the effect was ruined by the expression she always bore, as if she smelled something rotten. “If you want to smoke that, you need to be outside, at least a hundred feet from any entrance.”

Serena grumbled a reply and smudged her cigarette out on the top of one of the boxes, which earned her a disapproving look from Ellen. The brown skinned woman flicked the crumpled butt into the rolling trash can next to the shelves and held her hands up, proving it was really gone, unable to keep herself from rolling her eyes.

“Okay, it’s out,” she said to appease the other woman. “If you need me I’ll be outside.”

“You’ve already taken ten minutes,” Ellen reminded her. Of course, thought Serena irritably. She would know exactly how long she had been gone. Bitch. “You only have five more. You don’t really have enough time to go downstairs.”

Grinding her teeth together, Serena nodded sharply. “Fine,” she said. “I’m going to the ladies room then. I’ll be back in five.”

Without waiting for a reply, Serena pushed past Ellen, who made an aggravated noise in the back of her throat. She could feel the others in the office looking at her, their eyebrows raised in unsurprised expressions of disbelief. “They can suck it,” she mumbled under her breath, and the door to the office swung shut behind her with a satisfying click.

Her office, like many others on the floor, opened onto one long hall of the eighth floor of the Teagarden Toys building. Some of the offices were large and housed complexes of cubicles, like the one she worked in. Others were lucky enough that they at least got their own room.

As she was striding down the hall, her tennis shoes making soft but annoying squeaks against the marble tile, a dark haired man left his office and headed down the hall, his back to her. Bingo, thought Serena. She knew that office. It had a window. She had thought some fat guy worked in there, but maybe there was a new IT guy. Either way, he surely wouldn’t mind if she made use of his office for five minutes while he was gone.

Serena made sure he was safely gone, then ducked in, closing the door behind her. She strode to the small, narrow window and tugged at it, trying to get it open. It was stuck, and she looked closer, realizing some genius had painted the seal, making it near impossible to get open. Her eyes scanned the room, flickering over the IT guy's things, trying to find something that might help her. Her hazel eyes landed on a small screw driver, the kind used to take all those tiny screws out of laptops, and she snatched it. She wedged it into the painted seal, grunting with effort, and got it jammed in, then she levered it up. The paint seal cracked and she gave a quiet whoop of rejoice, then yanked the window open. Cold, fresh air assaulted her and she hurriedly dug out another cigarette, lighting it and bringing it to her lips once more. She tossed the screw driver back on the desk and it hit the mouse, making the computer glow to life once more, it’s black, hibernating screen being replaced by a list of names and places.

“Shit,” cursed Serena, bending down to grab the screwdriver that had just rolled off the desk. The sound of footsteps nearing the door became louder and her eyes widened. She threw her cigarette out the window, not even bothering to put it out, and pulled the window down, latching it, then leaned over the computer, setting the screwdriver next to the mouse. Her eyes landed on the screen, but she didn’t register what she was looking at. Probably some IT mumbo-jumbo that was over her head, she thought. But now she was stuck. The guy was coming back, and he was going to catch her in his office, and he’d probably tell her father, because that’s what they always did. They went straight to Richard Teagarden and told him they didn’t think she was ‘working out’.

Without really considering how much good it would do her, Serena ducked under the desk, pulling her feet in so she wouldn’t be visible. As she did, she cursed her own stupidity. What now,Serena? What’s going to happen when he comes in and sits at his desk and you’re there, crouched underneath? Now, instead of being busted for smoking, people are going to think you’re a complete nut job. Just brilliant.

Serena Teagarden was not a very good planner.

Alex paused for a moment outside the door to the IT Manager's office for a moment to check if Hale had returned earlier than expected. To his relief the room beyond seemed to be silent. He pushed open the door and closed it again carefully before going over to the computer and wasting no time, he hit 'Enter'.

To his relief, the screen flickered to bring up a small progress bar that declared the money was 'Transferring...'. With every pixel closer the tiny blue bar edged, Alex was a second or so closer to becoming a multimillionaire, to bringing Teagarden Toys to its smack-smuggling knees. Though his heart thudded in his chest, he sat back in the chair and tried to stay as calm as possible. After all, he still needed to get out of the building without attracting any attention. If he ran panicked down the corridor, he could guarantee Security would be after him quicker than he could say indictment for fraud.

He glanced around the room for inspiration, noting a dog-eared swimwear calender pinned to the wall by the window. That held his interest for all of five seconds before he went to tapping the mouse next to the computer keyboard distractedly. The progress bar was half-way across. Glancing from the screen over to the window, Alex suddenly realised that it was open. It was open.

He flinched, sending something next to the mouse clattering to the floor. It hadn't been open before. Of that, he was certain. It was a small detail but small details mattered. It meant that someone had been in here while he'd been in the server room. It meant that they might have seen the names on the computer screen. It meant that they might have the means to track him down, even if he did manage to get out of the building without being arrested.

"Shit!" he muttered under his breath, reaching for whatever it was he'd knocked onto the floor. He barely registered what it was; a screwdriver. He had no choice; he'd just have to get on with it as quickly as possible and hope that luck was on his side, that he could do a thirteen-country tour of the world's banks before Interpol or the CIA realised-

Alex froze. As his finger's closed over the screwdriver, his eyes grew wide as they focused on what was beneath the desk. The panicked hazel gaze of another person. Instinctively, Alex seized her shirt (for it was a woman who was hiding there) and dragged her out from beneath the desk. Throughout his career, he'd only ever had to use force on one or two unfortunate occasions; he took it as a mark of his own competence that they had been as rare as that. He didn't enjoy violence, didn't relish it like some people did.

She didn't have to know that though...

"What did you see?" he hissed, shoving her against the bank of processors up against the nearby wall. Now he could see her more clearly, he didn't recognise her; a black woman, about his own age, who looked as if she could use a few steaks and a full night's sleep. He tried to look as menacing as possible and in the dimness, with the power of his build, he pulled it off well. "What did you see!"

He was at a complete loss for what to do now. Hale would be back soon, this poor bitch would be able to identify him, might even be able to provide the account names that could track him down... Oh fuck, what was he going to do?

Large, male hands seized the front of her shirt and dragged her out from her hiding place under the desk. The moment she’d crouched there she’d known it was a stupid idea, but she had been stuck. She’d seen his shoes pace the room, then his legs as he sat down at the desk. His knees had been mere inches from her face. She had sucked in a silent breath, holding it, worried he would feel her exhalation through the cotton polyester blend of his pants. Apparently, that effort had been in vain. She literally shouldn’t have held her breath.

Was that where that saying came from, she wondered? Perhaps she wasn’t the first person to hide under the desk of a random IT guy… No, that was silly.

And her mind was wondering again. Her eyes darted to meet his, then flew down to the fists clutching her shirt, right over her breasts. Her eyes widened and she hurriedly slapped his hands away, a scowl on her face.

“How dare you?” she accused, pulling away from him. “You have no right to touch me like that. I could sue you for sexual harassment. Do you know what the HR department in this company would do to you? They’d have a fucking field day, and just wait till my father hears. Oh, you’re so in for it.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head at him, her lips pursed in a pissed off expression.

She completely ignored his question, mostly because she had no idea what he was talking about. Did she see anything? Like what? What was there possibly to see? She looked around the room in confusion, eyes darting from the empty box of donuts stuffed in the waste paper basket, to the tasteless bikini calendar hanging on the wall. The edges looked well thumbed, and she looked at him with a smirk. Pervert.

Pushing past him, Serena sat at his chair, crossing her legs, and reached for the phone to call the HR department just that moment. Or maybe she’d just pretend she was to freak him out, she decided. She didn’t really feel like filing a complaint and all that went along with that. She picked up the phone and dialed her own desk, then waited a few rings to start talking.

“Hello? This is Serena Teagarden. I’ve just been sexually harassed by some guy who works in IT, and I’d like to file a complaint.”

Her eyes glazed over as she waited a moment, pretending to listen to a voice on the other end of the line- a voice that didn’t exist. Her eyes flickered to the computer screen and she rested her cheek in the palm of her hand, looking more closely at what he’d pulled up.

Bejing, China…. 1.3 million dollars
Munich, Germany… 1.3 million dollars
Lascaux, France… 1.3 million dollars
Bogota, Columbia… 1.3 million dollars

The list went on. Her brow furrowed and she looked over her shoulder at him in confusion. The phone in her hand began to faintly beep, signaling no one was on the other line, and she mutely hung it up. A feeling of overwhelming wrongness began to swell in her stomach, and Serena swallowed hard.

To Alex's surprise the woman didn't react with fear, or even much surprise. Instead, she slapped his hands away in scowling outrage, as if being found hiding under a desk was a perfectly normal activity. Out of abject shock, he involuntarily loosened his grip on her shirt and watched, stunned, as she pushed past him and sat down at Hale's desk. He barely heard her threat about going to the HR department. That was the least of his problems at this particular moment in time.

It took him a few precious seconds to pull himself together and kick the phone cord out of the socket in the wall. She glanced at the computer screen in front of her then back over her shoulder at him, hazel eyes wide in realisation, and Alex's brain caught up with his ears.

Serena Teagarden.

Oh God, no... There'd been rumours about how the CEO had made space in the Sales department for his daughter, maybe to curb her Prada habit or give her a kick into adulthood. Hadn't Hale said: 'Teagarden was down here the other day, checking on that little princess of his down the corridor'.

A horrible trickling chill crept down Alex's spine as the enormity of the situation hit him full-force. He'd been caught in the middle of stealing seventeen million dollars by the daughter of the head of the company. This couldn't happen; it wasn't supposed to happen. Alex always planned every heist, every con in meticulous detail and now that things seemed to be free-wheeling out of control he was fighting to keep his head.

The computer beeped and he jumped. 'Transfer Complete' flashed across the screen. His future actions seemed to order themselves in his head and he moved with determined automation, pushing her out of the way and prying open the front of the computer tower. Crouching down to reach inside, he yanked out the hard drive, not bothering with delicacy as tiny metal screws pinged out onto the floor. Taking the hand-held laboratory degausser he bought last week (for over five hundred dollars, no less, but then that was a drop in the ocean compared to seventeen million) out his jacket pocket, he ran it over the disk hastily. The industrial strength magnetic field would wipe the drive completely clean, with no hope of any data recovery.

He stood up, stamping on the drive with the heel of his shoe for good measure, and picked up the screwdriver from the desk. Going over to the door, he jammed the end of the screwdriver through the glass of the fire-alarm box on the wall. Immediately, a deafening high-pitched wail filled the room. Outside, the sound of slamming doors, grumbles and pounding feet indicated that the occupants of the neighbouring offices were making their way downstairs. Going back to Serena, he dragged up back up out of the chair, this time ignoring any protests and jammed the sharp end of the screwdriver painfully into her ribs.

"We're going outside," he hissed into her ear. "Down the fire-escape at the back. Utter a single word to anyone and this screwdriver goes two inches deeper, OK?"

Her protests that he had no right to be man-handling her fell on deaf ears.

“Hey! Get your hands off me, assho-“

The end of a screwdriver suddenly was pressed into her rips. She could feel one of the metal edges scrape her skin through the material of her blouse, and her words suddenly died in her mouth. She went mute for a moment, eyes darting up to meet his, wide in shock.

Apparently this guy was not some technician, and apparently he meant business. Serena had heard of the sons and daughters of wealthy businessmen being kidnapped before, but she didn’t think this was what this was about. Her identity wasn’t what he was interested in- no, he was interested in the fact that she had seen something, and she didn’t even know what. Or, rather, she knew that what she had seen on that computer was probably the culprit, but she had no idea what it meant.

“Okay, okay. Let’s just calm down for a moment,” she squeaked, having a hard time staying calm while the fire alarm wailed. She could still hear people hurrying around outside, but would they even hear her cry for help over that damned alarm? And if they did, would it be in time? She wasn’t crazy about the idea of having a screw driver implanted into her lungs. She had a feeling that look would not be all the rage next Spring.

Maneuvering slowly, Serena slightly turned so she could see him a little better, and she raised her hands to show she wasn’t going to try anything. “Look, I have no idea what it is you’re doing, or what I saw. Really. And I don’t even know who you are. Just let me go. You don’t have to do this.”

Maybe reasoning would work, but it seemed sort of useless after she’d already reamed him out. Her mind was working double time, already working on a plan B in case he wasn’t feeling particularly giving that day. If he let her go, then… She’d run to the nearest security officer and tell them to find him and preferably shoot him in the back of the head. And if he made her traipse down the fire escape with him…

Well, then he wouldn’t be able to hold that screwdriver to her ribs while they climbed down the ladder. And that would be her chance. She’d try to get away and scream her lungs off. Good thing she was so good at yelling, thought Serena with a gulp. Finally it would come in handy.

With the two of them squeezed into that tiny stuffy room, surrounded by the blinking lights of computer terminals and the wail of the fire-alarm, Alex tried to calm himself. He didn't like this at all. He didn't like things being out of his control, not when he was running a con. It had never been his plan to take Richard Teagarden's daughter hostage. What was he going to do? Think!

He couldn't let her go. That much was certain. She was lying- he knew she'd seen something, knew she'd go blurting it out to her daddy if he let her go. If he could even make it out of the country before they tracked his accounts, he'd be a fugitive for the rest of his life and he certainly wouldn't get his hands on a single dollar of that haul. Teagarden had enough contacts to make sure that every mercenary available for hire would be on Alex's tail until they eventually hounded him down.

No, he'd adapt. This wasn't over yet.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he said, forcing her arm behind her back and keeping the screwdriver at her ribs. "You're coming with me..."

Outside, the sounds of footsteps had disappeared. Everyone would be gathering in the car park, shivering through their shirts in the cold and bitching about the fire alarm company or whoever had been smoking in the toilets and set it off again. Close to her back, Alex shoved her forward, reaching around her to open the door and together they shuffled into the deserted corridor. The fire escape was at the far end and he forced her to walk towards it, digging the screwdriver into the thin fabric of her blouse whenever she faltered.

"Here's why you're going to climb down that fire escape and wait for me patiently at the bottom," he hissed, loud enough for her to hear him over the moan of the alarm. "Daddy's been hiding several kilos of smack in amongst the Care Bears and the Barbies of each shipment from Bangkok and I've got the paperwork to prove it. If you don't smile and pretend you and I are the best of friends once we get down to the street, it will be splashed all over the front pages of tomorrows newspapers and I have a feeling your company credit card wouldn't be working once the news reaches the J. Edgar Hoover building."

"So," he said, once they had reached the top of the fire escape. He opened the door roughly and a breeze rushed in, sweeping their hair off out of their faces. "After you."

Damn, he was taking her with him whether she wanted to or not. Serena exhaled a pent up breath through her nose, and her nostrils flared in exasperation. The screwdriver was still held painfully to her ribs, but she refused to wince and give him the pleasure of knowing that he had her stuck. For as long as possible, she was going to try to maintain some semblance of control, even if it was a crumbling façade. Because really, who was she fooling? Probably not him. He probably thought he had her cornered, as if they were in some kind of fucked up game of cat and mouse, and she was the rodent backed into the corner. Well, he was wrong.

First, she knew his threat against her father’s company to be a complete and utter bluff. Sure, she’d heard of people smuggling drugs through things like stuffed animals before- who hadn’t? But that sort of thing happened in poor Asian countries, not in her backyard. And, even if it did, it was ludicrous to think that her father of all people, would be in on something like that.

She remembered a time when she was fifteen and had gotten caught smoking a joint by her father. She’d been in the woods behind her house with her boyfriend at the time, and he’d been teaching her how to roll a joint. It had been her first time smoking pot, and her father had found them. She cringed at the memory of how he had yelled first at her boyfriend, till the poor teen had turned white in the face and looked close to crying. Then her father had sent the boy home and told her to wait in her room for him. She had crept up the staircase like a dog with its tail between its legs, on the brink of tears herself. Her father had yelled at her plenty of times; hell, she was a problem child if there ever was one. But his stern silences were always the worst. She had waited in her room, sitting petrified on the end of her bed for him to come. When he finally did, she was greeted with more cold, stony silence. His talk with her about the consequences of drugs, and what would happen if he ever caught her so much as smoking a cigarette again, had gone on for more than an hour.

The talk had scared her, but not enough to stop her from doing anything. She had just been more careful after that. But it made her more than confident that her father, who had nearly had an aneurism when he’d caught his daughter smoking pot, would never be mixed up in drugs. He abhorred anything illegal, and he had no sympathy for potheads and drug addicts.

Slowly, she nodded her head at him. Sure, she’d comply, but she had already called his bluff. He had nothing to hold against her since she knew better. She’d get away from this psycho and call it a day. If it didn’t kill her (and god did she hope it didn’t) it would only make her stronger. Or, at least, that was the old adage.

He guided her into the empty hall, long since void of people. He was a smart one, thought Serena, pulling the fire alarm like that. Too bad she was smarter. Caught up in her thoughts, she stumbled. The end of the screwdriver bit painfully into her skin and she yelped, hurrying to keep ahead of him. He showed no remorse, just guided her along, seemingly confident he had gotten the better of her.

At the end of the corridor, he pulled open the door. Wind rushed in, blowing her hair back and assaulting her face. The light outside seemed unnaturally bright after the synthetic illumination of the hallway. She stepped onto the fire escape, and the rusty metal creaked under her weight. Against her better judgment, Serena looked down. Vertigo caught up with her and her stomach flipped uneasily, dizziness overcoming her. She hurriedly backed into him, trying to get off the fire escape, but her was solidly blocking the doorway. She looked back at him, eyes wide.

“I- I’m not sure I can do this,” she said, her voice higher than usual, and barely audible over the wail of the alarms and the howl of the wind.

The look on his face was hard, and Serena gulped, taking a deep breath. She was wasting time, she told herself. She was either going to have to climb down, or he’d probably just push her off. She’d take her chances with the rusty, iron ladders. “Never mind,” she mumbled. “I’m okay.”

She wasn’t, but she slowly gripped the sides of the first ladder and lowered herself one rung at a time. Step by step she made her way down till she finally reached the next platform. One platform turned into two, and two into three, and finally, painstakingly, the woman reached the ground. The feel of solid asphalt under her tennis shoes was more than comforting, and she looked around her quickly. They were on one of the sides of the building, in a dingy ally that was void of people. She knew they’d be gathered on either the front of back of the building though. She was so close she could taste it.

“Fuck you, asshole!” she called up to him, giving him the middle finger, and took off for one side of the ally.

She nodded, but didn't look particularly convinced by his assertion that her daddy-dearest was in fact an international drug baron- she obviously had no idea about what was going on then. But why would she? If he were in Richard Teagarden's place, Alex certainly wouldn't be telling his spoilt trust fund-sapper of a daughter anything incriminating. Well, he didn't care if she believed him or not, as long as she did as he said so he could get the two of them safely to street level, to where his car was parked around the back of the building.

At the top of the fire escape she faltered, her knuckles white on the railing as she edged backwards into him. For fuck's sake, he thought, as he rolled his eyes, now was not the time. She was climbing down that fire escape whether she liked it or not.

Luckily (as Alex wasn't entirely sure how he was going to get her down if her vertigo overcame her fear of the screwdriver digging at her ribs) she slowly began to climb down the rickety metal ladder. Alex followed her quickly, heart beginning to race even harder than it had been before. The fire assembly point was at the front of the building, in the main car park but, by some stroke of good fortune or subconscious paranoia, Alex's BMW was parked in the smaller overflow car park at the back. All he had to do was get her in and-

Her feet thudded onto tarmac and, one insult later, were pounding away down the alley.

"Shit," Alex swore under his breath. He jumped the last few feet and sprinted after her.

Perhaps because of the lack of muscle in those skinny legs of hers or perhaps because that parting gloat had cost her time, Alex caught up with her just a few feet from the end of the alley way. Slamming her back against the brick wall, he forced a hand over her mouth and chanced a breathless glance around the corner. Fifty yards away, every member of staff in the entire building were milling about impatiently in the chilly breeze.

Edging back, Alex looked at her, his hand still clamped over her mouth, with uncharacteristic uncertainty. She wasn't going to come quietly, was she?

"Sorry, princess," he said with a grimace, before hitting the back of her head hard against the brick wall.

---

When she regained consciousness, it was early evening and the sky above the highway was beginning to fade into dusk, a lilac light permeating the harsh sodium-orange glow of the street-lamps.

Glancing over at her from the driver's seat, Alex clicked on the child lock (as a precaution- she wouldn't be so stupid as to jump out of a car on a busy interstate) then tossed her the bundle of papers he'd stuffed down the side of the seat. Within those papers were every last detail he'd collected about Teagarden's smuggling operation, everything he'd needed to pull off the con. He'd already taken them to pick up everything they needed for the trip down to Mexico. Everything except for the extra passport his new travelling companion necessitated...

"There- that's why trying to escape back to daddy isn't a good idea," he said, tapping the papers. "There's an old friend of mine keeping copies of that. If he doesn't hear from me every three days then they're getting sent straight to Reuters. You've just got to stick with me whilst I skim a little off the top of his project and then you can go free whilst I disappear, OK?"

He'd had time to think about what he was going to do whilst she'd been out cold; he was going to take her with him. Sure, it complicated things a bit but as long as she played along, he could still make it out the other side seventeen million dollars richer and very much still alive. Hell, it might even make Teagarden less inclined to send his heavies after him (which he would no doubt do, once he found out) if his darling daughter might get caught in the crossfire...

Hazel eyes slowly blinked open, adjusting to the dim evening light outside of the moving car. Her head was throbbing, and keeping her eyes open was proving to be a problem. She groaned, eyes rolling back into her head, and felt the back of her skull. There was a bump right above the base of her ponytail, but no blood. Did she have a concussion?

What the hell had happened, Serena wondered, tiredly opening her eyes once more. Things looked blurry, and she blinked a few times, drawing things into focus. Her head rolled to the side and she saw the interior of a car door, then the side of her black leather seat. She looked the other way and saw a dark haired man, his locks tousled in that devil-may-care sort of way she used to go crazy for, once upon a time. His soft green eyes- a sharp contrast to the hardness of the rest of his face- were focused with determination on the road in front of him, and both hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. She saw him glance over at her quickly, then a thick bundle of papers was tossed into her lap.

Serena stared down at them blankly, memories of that afternoon coming back slowly, as if she was trying to reach them through a pool of marmalade. She reached with her mind, face scrunched in concentration, trying to remember how she had gotten into that car. Finally, the pieces clicked into place and she made a choking noise in the back of her throat.

Her feet were thudding on the asphalt rhythmically, as fast as she could go. Serena was glad she had worn tennis shoes that day, and a pants suit. She wouldn’t have wanted to make an escape in a pencil skirt and stilettos. She wouldn’t have stood a chance. She heard him drop to the cement behind her, then his own feet hitting the ground as he chased after her. She could hear him gaining on her and she started to panic, her mouth opening to scream for help, but he grabbed her by the back of her jacket and pinned her to the wall, one hand firmly clamped over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, and his were… uncertain.

“Sorry, princess.”

God, she hated when people called her that! And that was her last thought before he slammed her head into the brick wall behind her and she lost consciousness.

“You son of a bitch!” she yelled, and her head reeled. Burying her face between her knees, Serena waited till the pain went away before she slowly came back up. She glared at him with utter hatred. The blood had drained from her face and her brown skin looked paler than usual, accentuating the dark circles under her eyes. Her head was spinning and it was hard to concentrate, but she looked down at the papers he had tossed in her lap, trying to make sense of what she was reading.

She paled further, lips tight. There was the possibility that those papers were wrong, but it all looked so… legitimate. What if this guy was right?

“I don’t see what any of this has to do with me,” she said sullenly, and looked out the window. The lines on the street blurred by, killing her idea that she might be able to jump out of the car. Other cars whizzed by and she gulped. Hell, even if she survived jumping out of a moving car, one of the other ones would surely run her over. For the time being, Serena was stuck.

Now that his plan was thoroughly outlined in his head, Alex might have found the way in which she howled an insult then promptly collapsed her head between her knees amusing, if he hadn't been the one to cause her that pain in the first place. He'd only ever hit someone once before whilst pulling a con and that had ended with a six month stretch. Hopefully this wouldn't turn out the same way...

He glanced at her again. He was glad she was awake, of course. In the desperate few moments between hauling her onto his shoulder and running as best he could for his car in the deserted car-park around the back of the building, he'd wondered if he'd done her permanent damage. Once she was bundled safely into the passenger seat, he'd checked her breathing and had let out a relieved exhale of his own when he'd felt her breath against his cheek. He might be a con-man but he was no murderer. At least, not yet anyway.

Despite this, from the black glare she was giving him across the handbrake, he could tell she would not be giving him an easy ride. She might be a rich bitch slumming it in a menial job secured for her by daddy, but she sure as hell had fire in her.

"It wouldn't have anything to do with you," he said, glancing over at her again. She looked a little pale, he thought, but nothing a decent night's sleep wouldn't cure. "But for that cigarette break you decided to take in the I.T office. You saw the locations of the bank accounts I'd transferred the money to and, whilst they're still open, if you went and blabbed to Mr Teagarden, I'd be inside quicker than you could say 'Interpol'. Until I can go and close them in person..."

Alex shrugged, then flicked the indicator by the steering wheel, guiding the car off the highway and down a turning signposted 'Los Lunas'.

"Sorry princess, but you'll have to keep me company on my little world tour," he said.

Serena’s eyes closed, her head falling back against the headrest as she slowly gathered her wits. Fuck, she thought. Nothing but really, really bad luck. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if that bitch Ellen Fortenberry had just left her alone, she’d be at home by now, probably watching Jeopardy or eating that Chinese takeout left over in her fridge. Her stomach grumbled as she thought about the sweet and sour shrimp that was going to go bad in her fridge. All that greasy, sticky-sweet goodness, wasted.

She covered her stomach with her hand, trying to stop the gurgling, and it subsided.

“Well, you should be in jail,” she said testily, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re a thief, and now you’re a kidnapper. And you’ve assaulted me. Do you really think you’re going to get away with this? You’re not. When my father finds out I’m missing, he’s going to come after you. You know exactly how rich and powerful he is- what makes you think you’re just gonna get away? You think you’re the first person to try to steal from his company? You’re not. And you know what happened to the others? He sent big, scary men after them and found them.”

Actually, she knew very little about that. She had overheard her father on the phone once giving orders to find some guy that had stolen something from him, and he had sounded mad. She wasn’t sure if he’d been talking to the cops or someone he’d hired privately, but she suspected the latter. Other than that one occasion, she knew very little about how Richard Teagarden ran his business. It was a toy company, after all. What could be more innocent than that?

Maybe it wasn’t so innocent after all, though. She still didn’t fully believe the guy sitting next to her, but she had one of those heavy, gut feelings that maybe he was telling the truth about this one.

Suddenly, her face contorted into an expression of sheer annoyance, and she looked at him sharply. “Do not call me Princess,” she snapped through gritted teeth. God, it was like he was doing everything in his power to make this the worst day possible, thought Serena irritably. And still she couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact that she was being kidnapped. She was probably in shock, she realized, and later when the shock wore off she’d probably freak out and panic. At the moment though, all she felt was anger, annoyance, and one hell of a headache.

“So, what? You’re going to jet-set and somehow drag me along? How are you gonna pull that off? You should know better than to think I’m just going to go along quietly and make this easy for you. You must be out of your ever-loving mind. And then what? Let’s say you do somehow pull this off and get your money. You’re just going to let me go? He’ll definitely find you then.”

She sneered. “And you may have slammed my head into a wall, jack ass, but obviously you have no plans of killing me, otherwise you would have done it a long time ago.”

She really, really hoped that was true.

"It'd make things easier if I had..." said Alex, not quite under his breath. She was right, of course, but it wouldn't hurt to scare her...

The road he'd turned onto off the highway was a deserted, narrow road that snaked along the side of a ridge then dipped down into the valley beyond. The landscape, its edged illuminated by the headlights of Alex's car, was dry and scrubby. Los Lunas and Cesar's place, wasn't far from here.

"If you don't go along quietly," he said, after a few moments. He decided to ignore her references to 'big, scary men'. "If you lead Teagarden or the authorities straight to us, then daddy will be joining me in jail once the newspapers are off the presses. If that's not motivation enough, then I'm sure I can find a way to get your name in there too," he added, reaching over to prod the documents in her lap again.

"And don't you worry about me, princess," he said, grinning for the first time since the fire alarm (which seemed like an age ago) as he used her hated nickname. "Once those accounts are closed, you'll never see me again."

It was true. He was good at disappearing. James Kerry would disappear into a fog of bureaucracy, just as many before him had done. Maybe he'd get hit by a car in Connecticut or maybe he'd emigrate to Australia. And as James Kerry disappeared, so another man, a man in the ownership of seventeen million dollars, would appear in some warm, anonymous country where the beer was good and the women beautiful.

Ahead of them, about three hundred yards down the road, a building appeared, glowing in the darkening night. It was wooden and run-down, with paint peeling off a sign that declared: 'Gas and auto-repairs!' and in smaller letters underneath: 'Mecánico y la gasolina'. Outside a half-assembled car lay gutted on the forecourt in front of the large folding doors of the garage. Off to one side, two murky windows shone with light from within.

As they pulled over in front of the garage, the front door opened and the figure of a man appeared.

"You're here! I wondered if la chota were on your tail already," Cesar announced. He was a man of about thirty-five, stout and mocha-skinned, with two full sleeves of tattoos extending down below the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. "This is her, huh? You're loco, A-"

"No real names, Cesar," interrupted Alex, getting out of the car. He went around to the other side, clicking off the child-lock from his key fob and opening the door for Serena, on his guard in case she decided to make another dash off into the desert. "You sure you can do this?"

"For ten k I can do anything, friend," said Cesar, bending down to get a look at Serena. "Once we get her photo taken, it'll be ready by tomorrow morning. And you know me, A-, I mean, friend- it'll be the best; la migra won't suspect a thing."

He pulled into what looked like a run down, deserted gas station. Dull, neon signs glowed in the windows of the building, and streetlights over the parking lot flickered in an out, making the whole place seem like the setting of some kind of slasher flick. The man that approached them- solid, Mexican, and covered in tattoos- looked like the type that probably owned a shotgun and wasn’t afraid to use it. But when he talked to her kidnapper, his voice was friendly-if a bit incredulous as he looked at her- and she relaxed ever so slightly.

The man next to her got out of the car and she immediately reached for the handle, ready to bolt out. Unfortunately, he was already at her side of the car, opening the door. Sullenly she stood, trapped between him, the car, and whoever this “Cesar” guy was.

“Look,” she said, pursing her lips. “I don’t know what it is you’re doing now, but I’m not cooperating till I get some food. Feed me and I’ll play along for the time being, but I’m starving. Your plan isn’t to starve me, is it?”

Serena was used to making demands and having them met. All her life she had been babied by her nannies, spoiled by her father, and even her teachers had let her get away with her surly attitude and bossy manner. Her father’s money had always spoken volumes, and she was used to giving orders.

Before Alex had a chance to reply, Cesar burst out into raucous laughter.

"You weren't kidding about her, were you?" he said to Alex, then clapped Serena on the back. "No caviar here, nena. But I'm in the middle of cooking up a mean chimichanga with rice, how's that sound?"

Alex rolled his eyes. He'd seen Cesar stand five hours beneath an illicit prison tattoo gun made up of a guitar string, a biro and the electric motor from a walkman, seen him beat a man unconscious for the slightest back-handed insult and yet he turned into Martha Stewart as soon as a pretty woman showed her face. A pretty woman who could have them both sent to jail for an extremely long time.

"Come'on, you could use some meat on those bones..." Cesar continued, guiding Serena into the wooden house. Alex let them go on ahead, trusting Cesar to keep an eye on her as he knelt down and began to remove the licence plates from his car.

The inside of the house was warm and untidy. An over-flowing ashtray was precariously balanced on the arm of a battered sofa and what seemed like half an engine scattered across the surface of a plastic coffee table. Posters of rap artists and photographs were tacked to the wall, along with dozens of sketches. The sketches themselves were mostly portraits, or Latin-type designs that were drawn with a elegance that seemed oddly juxtaposed against the messy backdrop.

Striding across the sitting room, Cesar beckoned Serena in through to the kitchen, from which the delicious smells of frying spiced chicken and peppers were emanating. A rickety wooden table stood in one corner and a little kitchenette in the other. After stirring the contents of the pan sat on the stove, Cesar pulled open a drawer, rummaged around in and it eventually withdrew a point-and-shoot digital camera.

"What's he calling himself now-? James? That's it- James wants me to draft up a new passport for you, nena, but first you're gonna have to stand up against that wall and say cheese," he said, gesturing with the camera. "I promise you, the chimichangas will be worth it," he added, with a grin.

The inside of Cesar’s house reminded her of places she’d seen on tv- the kind of home where drugs were dealed and where babies ran around in dirty diapers. It was messy and seemed cluttered, but it wasn’t uninviting. There was a golden glow cast from the lamps on the side tables, and they illuminated overflowing ashtrays and surprising tasteful art on the walls. Serena’s eyes got caught on the sketches, particularly a charcoal sketch of a woman. The curve of her back was graceful, and the lines were deceptively simple. Entranced, the woman tripped over an egg crate full of old magazines and stumbled into Cesar. “Sorry,” she mumbled, following him into the kitchen.

The pan on the stove was slowly simmering, and the smell was mouthwatering. Her stomach gurgled, hunger now doubled in the presence of authentic Mexican cooking. Serena closed her eyes and inhaled the scent, smiling. “God, you can cook!” Her fear of him had almost disappeared, but she still kept her guard up.

Especially when he withdrew a camera. “Look, Cesar,” she said, thinking at a mile a minute. Maybe he would help her. Maybe he could get her out of that situation. “James said he was going to pay you ten thousand dollars to help him. I will double that if you help me get away. If the money doesn’t appeal to you, maybe a sense of honor toward women will. I don’t feel safe with him, Cesar. He already slammed my head into a brick wall so hard I passed out, and I’m pretty sure I have a concussion. What if he hurts me more? What if he kills me? Please, I will pay you twenty thousand dollars to help me get away from this guy. Whatever you want, I can help you get. You… you don’t have to do this.”

Her lip quivered, the way she had seen women do in movies when they pleaded for their lives. Though she was sincere in what she said, she wasn’t averse to milking her performance ever so slightly if it meant it bettered her odds.

Despite himself, for a moment Cesar looked tempted. But then he shrugged and laughed a deep throaty laugh full of genuine humour.

"You don't feel safe, nena? In the six years I've known him, I've never seen him hit another person, not even in la pinta. He has a bit more- ha, finesse than that. Take it from me; he's not gonna hurt you. You're lucky it was him and not some other cabron who decided to milk your daddy for some of his drug money."

Cesar grinned and took the opportunity to snap a quick photograph of her, eyes wide and lip quivering, against the pale background of the kitchen wall.

"So... Sorry, James is a good client and a better friend. Twenty k won't buy me, nena," said Cesar, his countenance darkening for the first time since she'd met him as he examined the image on the camera's screen then pocketed it.

"Oh Cesar, you're making me well up," came Alex's voice from the kitchen doorway. "The plates are off; can I borrow a spare set?"

"No problem," said the other man, looking up and grinning again. He went over to the stove and clicked off the gas, using a spatula to plonk one of the chimichangas onto a waiting plate. "I'll put them on once I've finished with apachurro here's passport. I'm gonna go eat and print out the photo; help yourself to the chimis and the sofa's all yours, nena," he added to Serena with a wink. "Unless you wanna join me upstairs."

With that, he disappeared through another door that led off from the kitchen. Beyond it, a study of sorts could be glimpsed, with scalpels and strange-looking metal tools neatly arranged on a battered wooden table and a stack of blue-backed passports piled in an open drawer beside it. A moment later, the door shut and Alex and Serena were left alone.

Going over to the stove, Alex nudged a fried wrap onto two plates and set down on the table, followed by a handful of cutlery. He wasn't anticipating sparkling conversation but he wasn't in the mood to remain silent. If he was going to have to drag her across five continents then it would make his life easier if she would at least stop attempting to bribe her way out of his control.

"You really want to get back home, huh princess? Twenty thousand dollars and a twenty-year stretch for daddy is a high price to pay," he said, conversationally.

When Cesar left and Alex entered, Serena’s lip immediately stopped quivering and her eyes became stormy. Her face darkened and she stomped over the stove, loudly making a point of getting a plate, letting it fall with an unnecessary clatter to the cheap, cracking counter top, then plopping a chimichanga onto her plate. She stormed back to the weathered table, giving him a look that should have killed him but unfortunately didn’t, and scraped the chair out. Sitting down roughly, Serena stabbed a fork into the food.

“Look, James,” she said irritably, looking up at him from her steaming plate. “I’m still not really sure I believe you about this whole drug business. My dad just isn’t the type, okay? But let’s just say he was. You’re forgetting how rich and powerful he is. He can afford the best lawyers in the world. It doesn’t really matter what he’s done, because I’m sure he could pay off the judge, the jury, and probably Saint Peter. You think he’s going to rot in jail? He won’t. At the most he’ll get a slap on the hand and maybe a few months probation. And me? I didn’t do anything wrong, and no jury is going to convict me. Justice isn’t as blind as you think. I may be a black woman, but I’m not a black woman from the streets. Any jury that sees me is going to see a poor, innocent woman.”

Hungrily, and with no lady-like finesse, Sabrina dove into the food on her plate. She ate quickly, trying to get it down quickly, afraid that maybe it was going to be taken away from her. She didn’t trust Alex, and she didn’t trust Cesar either. The fact that he turned down twenty thousand dollars out of loyalty for a criminal baffled her, and his reassurance that Alex wouldn’t hurt her was bullshit. He already had!

“You’re going to get caught, you know,” she said after finishing the food on her plate. “You’re going to be the one who rots in jail, and I’m going to testify against you with a grin on my face. Kidnapping me has to be the stupidest thing you could have done. So enjoy this while you can, because it’s all going to be over soon. Once my father finds out I’m missing, he’s going to come after me.”

She gave him a withering look and deposited her now-empty plate with a stack of dirty dishes sitting next to the sink, then strode into the living room, stretching out her long, skinny body on the lumpy but comfortable sofa. As soon as they fell asleep, she was out of there, she decided. She didn’t care if she had to run the whole way, she was getting the hell out of there.

"You're talking about the same crooked jury who your father's going to pay off?" said Alex, with a grin. He watched her with amusement as she moodily clattered her plate about and dug into the fried monstrosity Cesar had cooked up with a lack of grace that didn't quite match her trust-fund image. She was like a kid, he realised. A spoilt little kid who demanded their immediate needs be fulfilled and flew into a tantrum when things didn't go her way.

Still, he couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt at how obviously hungry she was. It had been almost a full eight hours since he'd set the fire alarm off (despite the fact it seemed like an age ago); he would have to remember he had her to consider now, not just himself. An extra piece of baggage to haul with him to thirteen different countries.

He watched as she finished her food and stormed over to the sofa. She was so slender, he thought idly. She had a mouth on her like an loud-speaker and yet she looked as if she might snap in two at the slightest knock or jolt.

Taking his time, Alex finished a good ten minutes after Serena then stood up and went over to the sink to turn on the hot tap. Soon, he was elbow-deep in suds and the pile of dirty dishes on the side were clean and drip-drying on the stand to his right. He moved with such nonchalance that it might have been an ordinary weekday night, washing-up after dinner.

Finished, he dried his hands then went over to the front door to pick up the blue hold-all he'd brought with him from the car. Another plan was forming.

"Fine," he said, crouching down in front of the sofa so he was at eye-level with Serena. "You don't believe me about daddy's smack smuggling ring. Especially for you, I'm going to make a change on my itinerary. Tomorrow morning, we're heading over the border down to Mexico City then, once I've closed an account, we're taking the first plane out to Bangkok. I've got to go there anyway but I wasn't planning on going as soon as this. Once we're there, we'll see if we can't find anything a little more concrete that could persuade you..."

He unzipped the hold-all and retrieved something from inside.

"I would ask you if that was OK, but you don't really have a choice," he added. With a speed surprising for a man his build, he grabbed her wrist and clicked one half of a set of handcuffs around it. Letting it drop, he clicked the other manacle around the wooden arm of the sofa.

"Better get some sleep, princess," he said, standing up and picking a cushion up off the sofa. He put it on top of the rug in front of the television and unrolled a felt blanket, the kind you got free on long-haul flights, out of his bag. "We're leaving early tomorrow."

The woman stretched languorously, popping off her tennis shoes with her toes, where they fell to the carpet with quiet thuds. She reached for the remote sitting on the cluttered coffee table and flicked on the television, flicking through the channels quickly. She stopped on Tom and Jerry, then leaned her head back against the cushioned section of a wooden couch arm, distractedly watching the cartoon in front of her.

From the kitchen, Serena could hear the sounds of Alex washing Cesar’s dishing. She could hear the rhythmic scrub of a sponge against the plates, then the sound of him carefully stacking them. What sort of con artist washed dishes? That seemed out of character for such a man. Serena had never had to wash a dish in her life. She couldn’t cook or clean, and she even resented the rare occasion she had to pump her own gas. It further surprised her that a man was doing house work. Her father had always had a… traditional view of gender roles.

Serena heard the water begin to drain from the sink, and she made sure she wasn’t looking at him when he entered the room. There was an insolent expression on her face as she stared blankly ahead at the tv. Unfortunately, Alex was determined to be seen, and when he crouched down in front of her, her hazel eyes snapped to his, her mouth set into a thin, straight line of annoyance. His change in itinerary made her stomach do a slow, uncomfortable flip of dread. There was such a complete look of utter somberness that made Serena fear exactly what she was going to learn on their foray into Mexico City. He was so set on making her see that her father was some kind of… some kind of… drug lord, or something. She bit her lip, glaring at him with hatred. She loved her father, and he was the only parent she had ever known. Now he was prepared to use her loyalty to him to his own advantage.

The handcuffs being clipped around her wrist caught her off guard, and by the time she snapped to what she was doing, her arm was cuffed above her to the arm of the sofa. She let her head fall back against the couch cushion, cursing herself for falling into such a situation. “I’m never going to be able to sleep like this,” she informed him, rattling the handcuff around the wooden arm. “Just take the cuff off. Come on- where am I gonna go? I slept the whole way here, thanks to a nice little concussion, so I’ve got no idea where we’re even at. I’m not stupid. Do you really think I’d try to run?”

Yes, yes she was stupid enough to run. She was more than prepared to take the chance that there was nothing within fifteen miles but ravenous coyotes that loved the taste of dark meat. Serena looked up at him with wide eyes, mouth pursed. He spread out his blanket in front of the sofa and grabbed the cushion by her feet. She felt tempted to try and kick him, but she resisted. He laid down on the felt blanket, and she stared at him. “James, if you don’t uncuff me right now, I swear to god I am going to keep you awake the entire night.”