Who could be calling?
The details of the day before hit her along with the second ring. Heart pounding, she grabbed the phone in sweat-slicked hands and held it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Ms. Hayes?” A deep voice, calm. Not Bryce. Not Perreth.
“Who is this?”
“Charles Rowe. I’m a resident at the hospital.”
Sylvie’s heart tripped into double time. “Bobby? Is he okay?”
“Actually, yes. He’s asking for you.”
“He’s awake?”
“He insisted I call. I’m sorry it’s so early, but he said it was urgent.”
She glanced at the clock. 4:00 a.m. It wasn’t even dawn yet. But that didn’t matter. Bobby was awake. He was going to be okay. And she could talk to him. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
“He’ll be happy to hear it.”
Sylvie didn’t wait for goodbyes. She ended the call, dropped the phone in her purse, and bounded out of bed. She was dressed and out the door in minutes.
Outside the hotel, the lingering glow of a streetlight filtered through orange leaves clinging to the branches of a sugar maple. Her breath puffed in front of her in frosty clouds. Cold poked through her jacket and between the fibers of her sweater, knifing straight to her skin.
For a second, Sylvie toyed with the idea of calling Bryce. After he’d left, she’d spent more than an hour staring at the ceiling, trying to untangle her feelings. She hadn’t succeeded. If anything, she’d felt more tempted to fling herself off the emotional cliff and more afraid he wouldn’t be there to catch her if she did.
She pulled out her phone, summoned an Uber, and sent a quick text to Bryce, letting him know what was happening. Somehow the idea of him meeting her at the hospital seemed safer, less needy.
The sound of an approaching car cut through her thoughts. She tapped send and looked up from her phone. A white minivan pulled to the curb in front of her. The driver’s door opened.
A van. White.
Wait. Was that right?
Sylvie had been so focused on what to text Bryce, she’d hardly noticed the details of the Uber that had committed to picking her up. She pulled up the app, and—
She sensed movement, the driver getting out of the car. She glanced up. Her hair blew in her eyes, obscuring her vision, but she could still make out the driver barreling toward her, broad shoulders decked out in a puffy university jacket, dark eyes staring from a red ski mask.
Her body froze. Her mind scrambled to make sense.
A ski mask? It wasn’t cold enough for a ski mask.
A gloved hand clamped around her bicep.
Sylvie spun to the side and pulled back, trying to rip her arm free. Her feet skidded. She went down, her knee smacking the concrete.
His fingers tightened, bruising strong. He yanked her to her feet. Her back slammed against a solid chest. His other arm circled her throat.
Sylvie scratched at his arm, his hands, her fingernails scraping slick nylon and leather. She kicked backward, connecting with a shin.
A muffled grunt vibrated through his chest.
Then his arm pressed against her throat, cutting off her scream.
Bryce
Bryce jabbed the elevator button for the lobby.
Nothing happened.
He jabbed again.
Last night Sylvie had assumed he was driving home, and he’d let her. If she’d known he’d taken a room just down the hall from hers, she probably would have thought he was overreacting. At the time, he would have considered her at least partially right.
But now?
What in the world was she doing leaving the hotel before sunrise? If she hadn’t texted, he wouldn’t have even known she was gone.
The elevator doors finally closed. It lurched a little, then started to move.
Slowly.
Far, far too slowly.
He should have taken the stairs. But after an excruciating wait, the doors opened at the lobby level. Bryce dashed out at a barely civilized fast walk. He’d parked in the ramp across the street, so he headed for the hotel’s front door and pushed out into the dark.
Except for a circle of yellow light from the streetlight on the far corner, shadows cloaked the block. But even through the darkness, Bryce could make out a white van to the left of the hotel. And the dark silhouette of a man wrestling something into the back.
Not something. Someone.
Sylvie.
“Hey!” Bryce yelled. He launched into a run.
The man looked in Bryce’s direction.
Sylvie yanked herself backward, nearly twisting away. She thrashed the man’s face with her free hand.
The man pulled back his arm, hand forming a fist. He plowed it into Sylvie’s jaw.
Her head snapped back. Her body sagged.
No, no, no.
Bryce pushed himself to move faster.
The man stuffed Sylvie into the back of the van and climbed in after. The door began to slide shut.
Bryce lunged for it. He gripped the steel edge with his left hand. Fighting to gain leverage, he pulled backward.
The door stopped its slide.
Bryce yanked harder, but the door wouldn’t open.
A foot shot from the opening and smashed into Bryce’s nose.
For a second, the pain stunned him. Then hot blood gushed down his face and filled his mouth. Dizziness swamped him. Bryce shook his head, trying to clear it.
The space narrowed. Steel sandwiched the fingers of his left hand. Pinching. Crushing. He couldn’t let go. If the door closed, Sylvie was gone.
A thump hit the inside of the door. Then another.
Oh, God…
Bryce threw his weight against the door’s motion. It again shuddered to a stop, but he couldn’t pry it wider.
Something red slammed against the window. A scream and more thuds came from inside. One more yank from Bryce, and the door slid open like a shot and Sylvie tumbled out, head-first.
Bryce half-caught her. He stumbled backwards before landing on the sidewalk, Sylvie on top of him.
Rubber squealed against pavement and the vehicle roared away down the street.
“Bryce!” Tears streamed down Sylvie’s swollen face. “He hurt you. Oh, God, you’re all bloody.”
He bet he looked like a mess. He sure hurt like hell. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Sylvie was safe. “Why did he let you go?”
“He didn’t.”
“Then how?”
“He got between my feet and the door. I guess he was more worried about you than me.”
Bryce would have laughed, if his face didn’t hurt so much. He could only hope the bastard had a broken rib or two. Share the wealth. “Why don’t you let me give you a ride to the hospital, okay?”
Sylvie clambered to her feet and then offered him a hand… until she saw his fingers. “Our first stop should probably be the ER.”
***
When Perreth reached the hospital, they were still sitting in the ER waiting room. Bryce’s whole head throbbed, and the fingers of his left hand were as thick and stiff as bratwurst.
A bruise bloomed in a deep shade of pink along Sylvie’s swollen jaw. And her eyes held a glassy look—the result of either a concussion or shock, neither one a nice prospect. But apparently their injuries weren’t serious enough to warrant the slightest bit of urgency on the part of the ER staff.
Perreth narrowed his beady eyes on Sylvie and cleared his throat with a wet smoker’s cough. “Can you tell me what this guy looked like?”
She went over his description: build, clothing, van.
“You’re not giving me much to go on,” Perreth said. “Should I go out and arrest everyone who drives a minivan and wears a Badgers jacket? Half the Madison population would be in jail.”