She doesn’t have to be stupid to be in danger.
Dillon was now as concerned as Carina had been earlier. Trevor Conrad may be a student at Georgetown and still a threat. Or he could be impersonating a student. Dillon needed to get to Starbucks as soon as possible and talk to the staff.
“When was Lucy supposed to meet this Trevor?”
“Nine,” she said.
“Is there anything else you’re not telling me, Becky?”
She bit her lip, tears rolling over her lashes. “She promised to meet me here fifteen minutes before graduation started. I don’t know what happened. Lucy should be here by now. I’m so sorry.”
Lucy regained consciousness when a reverberating motor changed pitch.
Her eyelids wouldn’t open, her limbs were numb, and she was bone cold. She shifted and discovered she’d been tied to a metal pipe.
She was sitting in a low puddle of ocean water, its distinctive salty aroma permeating her senses, waking her fully. The low rumble of a motor and the rise and fall of the floor told her she was on a boat. It wasn’t a big boat, she could tell, but it was big enough to have a couple of rooms beneath the deck.
Her new suede jacket-the one Carina had given her for high school graduation-was torn. Lucy felt a flap of material hanging from her elbow. That angered her for a split second, before she realized that something else was very, very wrong.
Someone was in the hold with her.
“So you’re finally awake.”
She jumped at the unfamiliar male voice.
“Who are you?” Lucy tried but failed to keep the panic out of her voice.
No answer. Though it hurt her head, she forced her eyelids open. Faint, orange emergency lights glowed dimly. It was indeed the hold of a boat, a small room with pipes and storage bins. The engine was behind her, its sound vibrating off the metal walls, making it seem like it was coming from everywhere. She swallowed thickly, coughed.
A big man with blond hair sat on a chair by the door, staring at her with dark eyes. In his right hand was a gun.
She swallowed again, feeling nauseous. “Who are you?” she repeated, fear bubbling in her gut. How did she get here? What had happened? Everything seemed fuzzy, her head felt thick. Had someone hit her over the head? She couldn’t remember. No, her head didn’t hurt like that. Just tired.
Had she been drugged?
The stranger stood, then knocked on the room’s closed metal door. A moment later, it opened. “She’s awake,” he said to someone Lucy couldn’t see.
“I’ll get him,” another voice replied, and Lucy heard someone walking up metal stairs.
“What’s going on?” Lucy tried to sound brave, but she was terrified.
The last thing she remembered was leaving the house to meet Trevor. They’d spent the past year talking online and more recently on the phone.
She’d never even made it into Starbucks. What had happened? She honestly couldn’t remember.
Think, Lucy!
It had been crowded, nine o’clock on a Thursday morning. She’d had two hours to get to the school, more than enough time. Parking at the far end of the lot, Lucy had been nervous. What if Trevor didn’t like her? What if he thought she was too young or immature?
She had opened her car door-
Then nothing. Lucy couldn’t remember anything after that.
The metal door of the hold reopened and another man walked in. He dismissed the hulking figure with the gun as he said, “Circle the island until all is clear, then let me know before you dock.”
Island? Lucy shivered. This man wasn’t as old as the big lug with the gun, but Lucy wasn’t sure exactly how old. Maybe thirty-five, maybe forty. He was also blond, but with windswept hair. Handsome, too, until Lucy looked in his eyes.
Cold, hard, blue. Even in the dim light, she saw how icy pale they were.
“Hello, Lucy.”
“Who are you? Why am I tied up?”
He put on an expression of mock surprise. “I’m shocked you don’t know who I am.”
She shook her head. “I’ve never met you.”
He smiled, but it didn’t make her feel any safer. “I recall you told me once, ‘We’re soul mates. I can feel it. I’d know you anywhere.’”
Lucy dry heaved, her words coming back to her. The words she’d typed to Trevor Conrad. Her online boyfriend. But Trevor was a freshman at Georgetown, where she would be starting college in the fall. They’d met in a Georgetown student chat room. He was nineteen. He wasn’t this man who was older than her brothers.
“You’re not-”
He laughed and touched her face. Lucy recoiled as if burned and he scowled, bringing his hardened face an inch from hers. Fear Lucy had never known before gripped her and she began shaking uncontrollably. “You should have listened to your family and not met with someone you didn’t know.”
“Why?” Her voice came out a squeak. She hated being afraid. “Why are you doing this?”
“You’re going to be a star, Lucy.”
“I want to go home. My family has some money. Call them. They’ll come.”
He laughed, stood, and walked back to the hatch door. “Lucy, do you think everything is about money? You don’t understand now, but you will. Very, very soon. Your family might try to find you, but you’ll never see them again.”
He opened the door.
“What are you going to do?”
Trevor looked over his shoulder. “Trust me, sweetheart, you don’t want to know.”
She was perfect.
Trevor Conrad wasn’t his name, but he’d once known-and killed-a man named Trevor Conrad. In fact, were Trevor still alive he would have fallen head over heels for the dark-haired beauty. But Trevor was, deservedly, in his grave. As far as Lucy was concerned, he was Trevor Conrad, a freshman at Georgetown. Trask was fine with that identity for the time being. After Lucy was dead, he would step into another dead man’s shoes. He had plenty to choose from.
Trask wasn’t his name, either, but he’d grown used to it. He liked it. The name commanded respect. Trask. Strong, forceful, in charge. He’d particularly enjoyed the way Special Agent Kate Donovan spat it from her mouth, with such venom, right before he disappeared from the warehouse with her partner. He loved women who fought back. They were the most fun to kill.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to get to Kate in the warehouse, a minor failure. Ever since she and her partner had started investigating Trask Enterprises, they’d been a problem. On the surface his corporation had been legitimate, but they had dug too deep. They’d never be able to prove he killed April Klinger. First, his face had never been shown on screen. Second, there was no body. The acid would have eaten away every identifiable piece of April even if they were able to find where he’d buried her.
But his other operations were at risk. While Trask Enterprises was legitimate and aboveboard, his more entertaining sideline was not.
The bigger failure of that night was Kate Donovan killing two of his men. He couldn’t forgive her for that. Good men who took orders were hard to find. And because she’d seen him, he’d had to disappear, putting his legitimate business in the hands of pathetic investors who were now raking in the dough from Trask’s own cyber masterpiece: sexual fantasy role-playing. And Roger had had to go underground because he was wanted for murder.
Just thinking of all he’d lost, the money he’d been forced to spend to stay in hiding these past five years, enraged him. He’d taken care of Paige Henshaw, but Kate had slipped away. The bitch. He couldn’t wait to someday get his hands around her little neck.
But for now, he’d let pretty little Lucy think whatever she wanted. And she thought he was Trevor Conrad. Although it really didn’t matter if she knew his real name; she’d be dead in two days.