The man paused and looked around. Had he heard the other woman enter? Carmen didn’t think so. The woman had slipped in quietly.
After letting out a sigh and scratching his crotch, the man stepped over to the table and stared at the towel. Carmen cursed under her breath for leaving it out. He picked it up and examined it closely. He seemed to be trying to determine how it got there. Suddenly, he dropped the towel onto the table then turned and walked toward Carmen’s hiding place. Did he sense she was there? The hair on the back of Carmen’s neck stood on end. Even with a knife, she would struggle to fend off a man of that size. She was an experienced fighter, but in close quarters, his weight would eventually overwhelm her.
As he continued in her direction, Carmen considered how to react. If he opened the door, she would have to use the element of surprise by kicking him in the crotch. When he doubled over, she would deliver a blow to his head with the blunt end of her knife. She hoped it would be enough to stun him while she made her escape. She would use the knife only if she had to in order to save her own life.
The man neared the closet door. Carmen moved to the back and prepared to deliver a powerful kick. It was time for all of those dead lifts, lateral lunges, and squats to pay off.
Then something surprising happened. Instead of opening the closet door, the man swept past. Seconds later, another door opened, and a light clicked on. He was in the bathroom.
Carmen breathed again. She had been ready to fight, but it would have been the worst of all options.
A noise drew her attention to the other side of the room. Carmen leaned forward and peered through the crack. She looked out in time to see the other woman slip quietly over to the door that led out of the suite. She opened it slowly then disappeared into the corridor.
As the man continued to relieve himself, Carmen stepped out of the closet. She wouldn’t be able to search the room, but it was better to live and fight another day. She also wanted to follow the other intruder.
Leaving the towel behind, she stepped over to the door and exited the room. Once outside, she glanced in both directions. The corridor was empty.
The mysterious blonde had disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BLINDFOLDED AND CUFFED, Devon Lind stumbled down the hallway. Two armed guards walked behind him, making any attempt to escape an act of suicide. Although his memory was fuzzy, Lind believed it had been five days since he was kidnapped off the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he knew he had been on a plane for many hours. That meant he was likely in another country. The temperature was too cool for most parts of Mexico, so he guessed he was being held in Canada or Western Europe.
The reason for his captivity was revealed soon after his capture: the kidnappers wanted to know the location of one of Devon’s relatives. Right from the start, he told them he didn’t know where that particular relative was. It was mostly true. He didn’t know his uncle’s address, but he did know his general location. But Devon wasn’t even going to give them that.
Initially, they tried to coax the information out of him. For the first two days, he was treated quite well. He was given three meals a day and a soft mattress to sleep on, and he was even allowed to shower once.
On the third day, things changed for the worse. He was woken up at an early hour, pulled from his cell, and taken to a dark room on one of the upper floors of the building. He was then strapped into a chair and stuck several times with a hypodermic needle. Once the injections took effect, Devon remembered very little. He had a vague memory of talking to a woman with dark hair. He couldn’t remember what they discussed, but he knew it was probably related to the information the group sought.
A sharp blow to his back returned Devon to the present. He had been walking too slowly, and one of the men had popped his shoulder blade with the butt of a rifle. The guards were the same two men who escorted him to and from his cell each day. One was a large man with dark hair and a chiseled physique. He was the alpha of the two, the one who gave all of the commands. He was also a cruel and violent person who seemed to take pleasure in hurting people. The other guard was a short man with close-cropped blond hair.
A strong hand grabbed the back of Devon’s neck and shoved him to the left. “Turn.”
Devon stumbled forward at an odd angle, his legs tangling in the process. He tried to stay on his feet but ended up going down face-first. Unable to use his cuffed hands to blunt the fall, Devon did the only thing he could — he turned his face at the last moment. That protected his nose and eyes, but the right side of his head smashed into the hard tile. The pain was almost unbearable.
As Devon squirmed in agony, hands moved under each of his armpits and lifted him into the air.
“That’s what you get for not paying attention,” growled the alpha guard. “Now get moving.”
Despite the pain, Devon focused on walking. The guards were looking for any opportunity to inflict pain, so it was important not to help them accomplish that goal by falling down.
Mercifully, a hand grabbed his shoulder a minute later. Devon breathed a sigh of relief. Even though he couldn’t see, he knew they had arrived at the elevator. That meant his cell was only a short ride away. Once there, he could rest for a couple of hours before getting a meager lunch of chicken, rice, and a glass of tap water.
There was a loud chime as the elevator doors slid apart.
“Get in,” the guard growled.
As the elevator began its descent, Devon recalled the genesis of his nightmare. It all began at a coffee shop on Fourth Avenue in downtown Nashville, just blocks from the tiny space he rented for his accounting business. He visited the shop each morning at the same time, a habit he had developed since his divorce a little over a year ago. He hated to cook, which meant a quick stop for caffeine and a bagel was compulsory.
On a cool, overcast morning several weeks ago, Devon had entered the shop and placed his order. As he waited, an attractive woman approached and asked if he would repeat what he had just said. Devon told her he had asked for a latte macchiato with a shot of caramel, along with a toasted blueberry bagel. When she heard his answer, the woman’s eyes widened. She said it was the same thing she always ordered.
After discovering their shared taste, the two had a quick but flirtatious conversation then went their separate ways. But that wasn’t the end of the story; it was the beginning. The two arrived at the coffee shop around the same time each day, so the conversations continued. Over the next week, Devon realized that they didn’t just have drink preferences in common but had many other shared interests as well. And while he didn’t believe in fate, he couldn’t help being mesmerized by the woman who called herself Annabelle. She was attractive, quick-witted, and easy to talk to.
As time went on, Devon decided to let nature run its course. He had shied away from relationships in the wake of his nasty divorce, but if he was going to make an exception, Annabelle was a good person to consider.
Eventually, their brief chats at the counter led to longer chats at a table. Over time, the two decided to take things up a notch — they decided to meet for drinks after work on a Friday. Fortunately for Devon, the attraction didn’t end outside the walls of the little coffee shop. The Friday-night drinks went so well that they agreed to dinner the next night at Etch, one of Nashville’s culinary institutions. It turned out to be one of the best dinner dates Devon had ever experienced. He had the grilled filet with potato cake and Brussels sprouts, while she dined on a healthier choice of a mixed green salad and broiled scallops. The food, wine, and conversation were so amazing that the two and a half hours seemed like twenty minutes.