Burn: A Novel (13 page)

We
.

The driver was in on it. He’d deliberately stopped so the locks would disengage and the woman could get in. Everything had been prearranged; he’d known she would be there.

For a long, dizzying moment, Sydney held her breath. She
clutched her purse because it was literally all she had to hold on to. Kidnapping was always a possibility when someone had money and her father had a lot of money but security in their circles was mostly limited to
home
security. She knew a few people who employed personal security guards, but very few, because for the most part people just lived their lives as normally as possible. So far as she knew, her father had never had a kidnapping threat. And yet, here she was in a locked car with two strangers, one of whom was holding a gun on her.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic
. She told herself that over and over. If she panicked, she would lose control and start crying and screaming, and somehow it seemed important not to do that. All she could think was how upset her father would be if she were killed, so she shouldn’t do anything that would force these people to shoot her.

Everything would work out. They would ask for a ransom, her father would pay it, and they would let her go. This would all be over in no time.

She’d seen their faces
. Wasn’t that a bad sign? Hadn’t she read somewhere that kidnappers who intended to let their victims go after they got the money always concealed their faces, so they couldn’t be identified? If a kidnapper made no attempt to conceal his—or her—identity, they usually didn’t intend to let the victim live.

“People are expecting me,” she blurted desperately. “I’m supposed to go on a cruise. I was on my way there—” But they knew that, didn’t they? After all, “Adam” was her driver. He’d been supposed to take her to the dock. She lurched into a different tack. “I have money. Cash—”

“We won’t want your money,” the woman said. She was tall, with short dark hair and the sort of leggy elegance of a model, though she wasn’t particularly pretty. Her tone wasn’t harsh or vicious, which Sydney would have expected given the gun in her hand.

“But … I …” Sydney’s voice trailed off, because her mind went blank. If they didn’t want her money, what
did
they want?

“Stay calm,” the woman said. “Do exactly as we tell you, and when this is all over you and your friend will be allowed to walk away, completely unharmed. But if you pull any John Wayne shit, your friend will pay the price for it. Understood?”

Sydney’s thoughts splintered again. They’d grabbed
Caro
? If they don’t want money, then why? And even more ridiculously—John Wayne?
Her
?

“We already have Ms. Redwine,” the woman continued. “In a little while, we’ll set up a call for you to talk to her. That way you each will know the other is okay—for now.”

Not Caro.
Jenner
.

A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. Oh, God, Jenner was the one they should be having the John Wayne talk with, not her.

“Calm down,” the woman said sharply, seeing how rapidly Sydney’s control was fraying.

Sydney gripped her bag so tightly her knuckles turned white, her chest heaving with the force and speed of her breathing. Her lips felt numb. “What do you want?” she whispered, and tears stung her eyes. Quickly she wiped them away, not wanting to appear any weaker than she was, even though she knew the woman had already seen them and knew very well what they meant. They
wanted
her to be afraid. They wanted her to be so terrified that she’d do whatever they said, when they said it. Well, congratulations—she was there already.

“Just do as you’re told” was the only answer she got. “If you cooperate, you’ll be treated well. This experience doesn’t have to be unpleasant.”

The limo made a smooth turn. Ahead, several hotels loomed on either side of the street, some taller than others, some sterile and generic, others more welcoming. Sydney stared blindly at them. There were always a lot of people around hotels; maybe she could attract someone’s attention, though the windows of the limo were tinted so dark she didn’t see how. And what if she did? What would happen then? Would this woman shoot her?

“We’re going to walk into the hotel,” the woman said in a low, even tone, “without incident, without any sign that we aren’t the best of friends. I repeat: Do as you’re told, and you and Ms. Red-wine won’t be hurt. We’re going to check in, and you’re going to hand over your credit card and sign the registration paperwork the way we’ve both done hundreds of times before, then we’ll all go up in the elevator. I’ll be watching. I’ll know if you do anything different, if you try to scribble a message or roll your eyes at the clerk …
anything
. If you do anything out of the ordinary, Ms. Red-wine will pay the price.”

That threat froze whatever idea Sydney might have had for trying to run, make a quick escape. Jenner’s life depended on her, on what she did or didn’t do. Oh, God, she’d never been able to act worth a damn. What if she couldn’t even manage to check into a hotel without looking as if the bitch next to her was holding a damn gun on her? She wasn’t an actress, she wasn’t brave, and she didn’t have an intrepid bone in her body. What if she screwed this up?

She couldn’t. She couldn’t let Jenner down. She had to get this right.

The limo turned, and came to a stop under a large, curved portico where hotel guests arrived and left by taxi, or left their own vehicles for the valet service. A burly hotel doorman in a burgundy uniform stepped forward and opened the passenger door. The woman slid out, and stood waiting, so close to the car that the doorman couldn’t close the door, while Adam got out and silently opened Sydney’s door. She swung her legs out and stood, carefully not looking at him. If the woman was armed, it stood to reason that he was, too, otherwise the woman wouldn’t have gotten out of the car and left Sydney inside.

Adam stood just a shade too close to her, not so close that he would attract attention, but close enough that she had no hope of darting around him and making a break for it. If it hadn’t been for Jenner, she might have tried something desperate like that, but they had her as effectively hogtied with their threats as if they had actually used rope to secure her.

The woman came around the car, smiling, and looped her arm through Sydney’s. “Take care of the tip, Adam, please,” she said pleasantly, then marched Sydney inside the hotel.

With no other choice, Sydney sucked in a deep breath, steadied her weak knees, and did exactly what the woman had told her to do. Her heart was pounding so hard and fast she thought she might faint, and her voice sounded high and squeaky to her own ears, but she handed over her platinum American Express card, she signed her name, collected the key cards—three of them—at the woman’s whispered direction, and turned all three of them over to her. When the hotel clerk asked if she had luggage, the woman smiled and said, “Our driver is bringing up our bags,” and that was that.

They went to the bank of elevators, the woman punched the “up” button, and casually glanced around, studying everyone and everything around them. The elevator arrived with a pleasant little tone, the doors smoothly opened, and they stepped inside, along with several other people. The woman punched the button for the top floor—the twenty-fifth—and they shot up. An older woman got off on fourteen. A young man exited on seventeen. When he was gone and the doors had closed behind him, Sydney blurted, “How do I know Jenner is all right?”

The woman squeezed Sydney’s arm and glanced up at the camera in the corner of the elevator car. Frustrated, Syd turned so that only the back of her head faced the camera. “On TV, there’s no sound on elevator surveillance tapes.”

The woman smiled, a completely humorless stretching of her lips, and whispered, “This isn’t TV.”

On the twenty-third floor, another woman joined them.

They reached the twenty-fifth floor, exited the elevator, and the second woman fell into step with them. Sydney darted a frightened glance at her and was met with a cool look that sent chills down her spine. She was with them, then—whoever “they” were.

Silently she followed the first woman, with the second one pulling guard duty. They took a right, then walked all the way down a long hall to the double door at the end. A suite, then.

The woman took one of the key cards, swiped it, and opened the door. A firm hand on Sydney’s back ushered her into the foyer, then turned her to the left, toward the parlor. Immediately the first woman went over to the window and closed the curtains, while the other one, behind Sydney, turned on the lights. She also turned the air-conditioning to a cooler temperature. Sydney stood beside the round dining table and watched them, feeling more impotent than she ever had in her entire life. What was going on?

The second woman had long brown hair pulled up into a pony-tail. She was prettier than the first woman, but her body was just as taut and muscled. She pulled off her jacket, and Sydney saw a knife in a sheath at the small of her back. A knife! What was this, Charlie’s Angels gone bad?

But somehow the knife was more frightening than the gun. Guns made noise—well, unless they were silenced, and the gun she’d seen hadn’t been—and brought people running. A knife was silent; her body might not be found for days.

She plucked up her courage.
“Now
will someone tell me what’s going on?” She tried very hard not to let her fear show, but she heard her voice waver in the middle of the sentence.

The first woman said, “You don’t need to know. You just need to do what you’re told. My name is Dori, and this is Kim. Please sit down while we wait for Adam.”

Sydney sat. She tried to calm herself, but it wasn’t easy. Would they have told her their names if they intended for her to survive? She could describe them, she knew their names. Of course, the names could be fake, but the fact that they’d made no effort to disguise their faces still wasn’t good.

The enormity of it all suddenly hit her like a slap in the face. She gulped and tried to control the violent shaking that seized her, tried to stop the tears that suddenly welled in her eyes and dripped down her face, but all of her willpower was useless against her sudden despair and she covered her face with her hands, sobbing. She didn’t cry just for herself. She cried for her dad, who would be in so much pain and blame himself, if this kidnapping
proceeded as she suspected it would and she ended up dead—or worse, she simply disappeared and he never knew what happened to her. And Jenner … was she being held this way? Had she been met at the airport by more of these people, was she also taken to a hotel somewhere for God knows what purpose?

Dori and Kim left her alone for a couple of minutes, then a soft but strong hand gripped Syd’s arms and pulled her up, to an unsteady standing position. Those hands remained in place, literally supporting her.

“First things first,” Dori said, gently taking the bag Sydney had continued to clutch. She opened the bag and searched through the contents, removing both Syd’s iPod and her cell phone, a nail file, two pens, a safety pin, and anything else that was remotely useful. In a moment of bad timing, the cell phone began to ring. Sydney jerked, startled by the tone, and automatically reached for it.

Dori silently took the phone and slipped it in her pocket.

Kim took Syd’s arm and led her back through the foyer, past the double doors, toward the bedroom. “In a little while, we’re going to call Ms. Redwine. Use the time to pull yourself together. You’re going to give Ms. Redwine instructions, and if she does as she’s told and you do as you’re told, everyone will be all right. I give you my word.”

She sounded sincere. It was all Syd could do not to laugh in her face. Was she supposed to
trust
these people? She’d do what they said, because she had no choice, but their “word” didn’t mean a thing. What kind of fool would take comfort in the word of a criminal?

They stepped into a spacious corner bedroom. Light poured into the room, which was decorated in blue and beige—mostly beige. There was a king-size bed, a comfortable-looking chair by the window, and a private bath.

“In a day or two we’ll let you call your father, since it’s possible he’ll hear that you aren’t on board the ship.”

Yes, Syd could imagine that happening. An e-mail or a phone
call from someone aboard the
Silver Mist
could cause all sorts of complications.

“You’ll tell him you were too ill to make the trip, you must have caught a virus, but you’re feeling better and you’ll spend some more time in San Diego, with Caro, until Ms. Redwine returns from the cruise.”

“If I’m better, then why don’t I just fly to Hawaii and join the cruise there?” Sydney blurted.

Kim stared at her, then gave a shrug. “You’re feeling better, but the virus is still holding on.”

“You’re not going to … ask him for money?” Why else would they be holding her?

“No,” Kim said briefly, and her expression hardened. “Here’s the situation, Ms. Hazlett. You’ll notice this bedroom has no walls common to another room. There are two outside walls, and the emergency stairwell runs beside the third wall. We’re on the top floor, so, barring an emergency, of course, traffic in the stairwell will be limited.”

That was true. Some people took the stairs as a matter of course, for the exercise, but from the twenty-fifth floor?

“If you scream for help or bang on the walls,” Kim continued, “no one will hear you but us. However, we’re hoping you’ll continue to cooperate. You won’t be completely confined; maids will come in and you’ll need to be in the parlor with us while they’re here. We’ll also be ordering room service, and you’ll take your meals with us.”

Room service that would be charged to her American Express, Sydney thought bitterly. That really pissed her off, that she was being made to finance her own kidnapping.

“If we see even a hint that you’re not cooperating fully, if you do something silly such as try to signal one of the maids, our people who’re holding Ms. Redwine will be informed.” Her eyes turned cold. “You really don’t want to do that.”