Stolen(7)

It was impossible, at least for her, to tell how long the blood had been soaking into the floor. Had someone else been brought here before her? The thought made her gag, but she forced herself to breathe through the moment and focus on her own survival.

She should catalogue any and all information available to her.

The wounds on her throat were covered in a thin yellow pre-scab. How long would that healing process have taken to kick in? She didn’t know, but she guessed it to be longer than a few hours but shorter than a few days.

When you’re fighting to survive, you never know what little thing will turn out to be important.

Her counselors at wilderness camp—a survival therapy program that had been one of her parents’ desperate schemes to fix her—emphasized that point until she had been sick to death of hearing it. How she’d hated that camp.

It had been just one more confirmation that she was broken.

But now, a flicker of hope began to build inside her. Because of that stupid survival therapy, she had skills. She knew more than most people about staying alive. Despite her dire circumstances, she wasn’t completely helpless—and she had her parents and those relentless counselors to thank. Irony, it seemed, wasn’t always a bad thing.

She decided to take inventory of what she knew—or thought she knew—so far. Between one and three days ago, someone had drugged her, kidnapped her, stripped her naked, slashed her throat, and left her to die in the middle of nowhere. As her brain clicked into gear, her pulse slowed. She ticked off the terrifying facts like she was reciting a grocery list.

Good.

That meant she was pulling it together.

It meant she was going to get through this.

Then suddenly, her chest contracted to the point she could barely breathe, as a thought pushed its way to the surface, shattering her confidence into a million pieces.

Maybe he hadn’t left her to die in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe her monster was still with her.





Chapter 5





Thursday, October 24

12:25 P.M.

Denver, Colorado



At first glance, Caitlin hadn’t recognized the man in the back of the limo. He’d changed over the years. His face had grown slightly fuller, more lines cracked around his cunning blue eyes, and his blond hair exposed a touch more of his forehead—but that wasn’t the reason it took her a moment to know him. She simply hadn’t expected to see Dr. Grady Webber in Senator Whit Chaucer’s limo.

She hadn’t expected to see Grady anywhere.

Ever again.

Never would’ve been too soon.

Still, here he was.

She searched her brain for a reason. Among the cobwebs draping the farthest recesses of her mind, that place where she’d vanquished all things Grady, hung the flimsy recollection that he and the senator knew each other.

She ducked her chin to conceal the displeasure that must be written all over her face. Then, teeth gritted, she climbed in, choosing a seat directly facing Grady. He was still built like a running back, and he still dressed like a GQ model. His long legs stretched across the aisle of the limo, and he politely bent them to make room for her. He appeared handsomely distinguished in an expensive gray silk, Hugo Boss if she had to guess—he’d always been partial to that designer.

Their eyes locked.

“Dr. Cassidy, I presume?”

Her face went white-hot. “Hello Grady,” she said, trying to add enough enthusiasm to her voice to hide her annoyance at his subterfuge. Why pretend he didn’t know her unless he wanted to make it seem like a bigger deal than it really was once the truth came out? And of course the truth would come out because she had no intention of keeping her past relationship with Grady Webber a secret from Spense.

They’d fought too hard to develop mutual trust to risk losing it now.

For years she and Spense had battled one another professionally, with her working to protect the rights of accused innocents while Spense did whatever it took to get the bad guys off the streets. It wasn’t until recently, when they’d been forced to work together on the Man in the Maze case, that they’d realized they’d been on the same side all along: justice. It hadn’t taken long for theirs to develop into much more than a working relationship—so maybe those sparks between them all these years hadn’t been about competition after all. In any case, over the past few months they’d been through the fire together. He’d saved her life more than once, and she’d saved his. He’d earned both her trust and her heart, and there was no way she would deliberately mislead Spense—not about Grady—not about anything.

Spense found a seat next to Grady, and she turned her mind back to the job. She wasn’t sure why Grady was here, in the senator’s limo, but she could guess what he might have to do with the Laura Chaucer missing person case.