Forster, Suzanne Read Free

in his hand.
    "He's got a knife!" she cried, stumbling forward. Her wrists strained against the electrician's tape as she fought to keep her balance. The kidnapper had released her, but by the time she got herself turned around, she saw that it was already too late. There was no way to stop the nightmare that was unfolding before her eyes.
    The guard lurched toward the kidnapper, brandishing a pair of pruning sheers. "You're dead!" he snarled.
    "I don't think so," the other man said softly.
    Gus held her breath, expecting the kidnapper to spring into action. Instead, with the icy deliberation of an assassin, he drew a gun from the cargo pocket of his jumpsuit, released what looked like a safety and took deadly aim.
    "Not today, anyway, " he breathed. His hand kicked slightly up as the gun fired.
    "No!" Gus sank to the ground in a huddle. "Oh, God, no!"
    The guard reeled backward in shock, caught his hand to his chest, and dropped. He crumpled to the ground in a heap, still clutching the shears.
    Gus closed her eyes and began to rock, unable to help herself. This couldn't 't be happening. It couldn't 't be. She had only meant to jolt the family trust officer out of his blind devotion to the status quo, to force Ward McHenry's hand, not that anyone would be hurt. Never that.
    She heard the kidnapper telling her to get up, but she couldn't. The horror that gripped her had robbed her of all control. Her disbelief was so great she forced herself to open her eyes and look at what she'd seen, certain she must have hallucinated it. But she hadn't. The guard was sprawled on his side not twenty feet from her. The shears lay next to his hand.
    "You k-killed him, " she whispered, unable to tear her gaze from the fallen man. "He's dead!"
    The kidnapper stowed the gun in the pocket of his jumpsuit and came for her. "He'll get over it. "
    "Get over being d-dead?" She stared up at him, horrified, and saw something change in his expression. For a second, unless she was so desperate she imagined it, she saw a flicker of humanity in his eyes, a whisper of something alive. Hope surged in her throat and a terrible weakness enveloped her.
    "Please, " she implored him, "don't do this. Please—"
    "Come on. "
    He reached for her, but she shrank away. "No!"
    "Come on, " he repeated, something husky breathing into his tone, perhaps even a trace of concern. He lifted her to her feet, but with far less force then he'd used before. Gus wondered if he might actually be trying to reassure her, and her heart squeezed painfully. But the wild hope that had risen within her died as he turned her away from him.
    A blindfold dropped over her eyes.
    "What are you doing?" she whispered.
    Her answer was two powerful arms. He hooked one under her knees, scooped her up like an accident victim, and began to carry her toward the gated entrance of the pool area. Screaming was a distant thought, but it would have taken far more concentration than she possessed. She was vibrating uncontrollably, all through her being, like a quaking, terrified newborn. She felt as if she'd been reduced to that, embryonic terror. By the time he'd settled her on the ground, she'd lost her bearings altogether.
    Ignoring her muffled cries, he began to roll her up bodily in something. A rug, she realized. He was rolling her up in an area rug! No, this couldn't be happening! She was caught between laughter and sobs, on the ragged edges of hysteria, and that one line kept playing through her mind, a frantic attempt to deny the insanity that seemed to have overtaken her.
    This can't be happening.
    She felt herself being hoisted high into the air and draped over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. She was on her way to the dry cleaners apparently. Or at least that's how it would look to the neighbors! A gasp burned in her throat, and suddenly in the midst of all the chaos that was short-circuiting her mental processes, one thing made perfect sense. His jumpsuit. It was the uniform of the service