Page 40 of Booked for Kidnapping

“You’re frozen through is what you are, so you’re probably hurting without realizing it. You don’t have a scrap of fat left on that body of yours. Bradley grabbed something at one of the airport convenience stores for you, but it’s not Chinese. We figured you’d eat just about anything until we could get you in range of a Chinese restaurant. And since it was the first time anyone had used your email address, we figured you’d probably sent the email, especially as you’d done so through a library, or so your email claimed. I’m thinking it was you who’d sent that email.”

“I'd say the odds are slim someone else used my email.” I yawned, and as my pride had already taken a hike, I made myself comfortable against his back. “I shouldn’t be this tired.”

“It’s four in the morning, you’re freezing your ass off, and you don’t have a scrap of fat on your bones right now. It’d be stranger if you weren’t tired, Janette.” Bradley’s father whistled, a sharp, shrill sound that cut over the nearby surf washing over the sand. “And if you fall asleep, don’t worry about a thing. Nobody is going to think less of you for being tired. We have a hotel booked in San Francisco, and we took it for two nights in the hopes we’d have to give you a chance to relax before taking you home to more chaos.”

I peeked around his back to spot Bradley scrambling up the incline. “What is it, Dad?”

“Come fetch your woman before she falls asleep where she’s standing. She dragged herself out of some bushes after you went down to the beach. Her voice is hoarse, she’s freezing her ass off, and she’s exhausted, but she looks intact enough. And before you start your fretting, her foot is fine, but you can’t grab her and swing her around right now. You can very gingerly carry her to the car and get her warmed up in the back. I’ll drive while you fret. Janette, do at least try to maintain a basic relationship with coherency until we reach the hotel.”

“I can do that.” I hoped.

While Bradley didn’t run, he hurried to join us, sidestepped his father, and looked me over, his gaze settling on my face. He frowned and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. “You’re paler than a ghost and freezing.”

“I’m pretty sure I already said she was cold. Go get her to the car,” Bradley’s father ordered. “She’ll warm up soon enough. Just make sure she’s buckled in before feeding her. While you do that, I’ll look to see if there’s anywhere that’s open to get her something else to eat.”

“Would you prefer to walk? Is your foot all right?” Bradley brushed my hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ears. “You have sand all in your hair. Did you have a good time at the beach while you were waiting?”

I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out my collection of tiny shells and my piece of sea glass, straightened, and showed him my treasures. “We should go to the beach every year at least once.”

“I think we can handle that,” he replied, and he smiled. “How’d they keep you from making your escape sooner?”

“Sleeping prisoners can’t cause much problems, and when I wasn’t sleeping, they provided books. There were also illusions that did a good job of making it hard to get out, but I figured it out. I can walk to the car.”

“Without your cane?”

I nodded, and I pointed at my foot. “It’s sore, but it’s mostly better. I can wear shoes again.”

It hadn’t been long ago when I’d doubted I’d ever manage to escape a cast or a boot.

“Dad?”

“I had a look at it. Somebody installed pins at a minimum, and they did a hell of a lot of reconstruction work. She’ll need to have it scanned to see what was done. I’m more concerned about how they kept her so drugged she had no idea she’d been shot in the first place. She hadn’t noticed the scar until she saw the news reports. Whoever had her wanted her healthy, and while she’s thin, that’s probably because of sedation and lack of exercise. I’m thinking about how to handle the situation, because the last thing she needs is to be swarmed by the media. And you’ll be swarmed, Janette. They caught you saving Senator Westonhaus’s life on camera.”

Bradley worked his arm around me, pulled me away from his father, and pointed in the direction of where they’d parked near to the library. “Walking will help you warm up and keep you awake, and after we get you something to eat and to the hotel, we can talk. We have a lot to fill you in on. As I’ve refused to register you as dead, you’re still in the cell, and we’re still trying to operate, but it’s been hard.”

“You’re not angry?” I whispered.

Shaking his head, Bradley pulled me close to his side, and then he sighed and kissed my temple, a lot like my father did when determined to make me understand everything would be all right. “Not at you. No, I’ve learned if you can save someone, you will, so I have chosen to be proud of you. I’m upset you were shot, and I’ve been worried sick, but I was never mad at you. Your mother is really mad you got shot, but she does still love you even though she’s really mad you were shot and then kidnapped. Your father isn’t talking to me right now because he feels I should have kept you out of trouble. I told him I wasn’t your babysitter, you could go do your job as a librarian without me getting in your way, and it wasn’t your fault your work required you to meet with a politician. Mostly, he’s mad that I supported your decision to do your job without trying to control you. He’ll forgive me eventually.”

“He better forgive you.” It’d been so long since I’d had human contact I pressed as close as I could, shivering at the thought of being alone again. “Is Ajani all right?”

“Ajani is fine, although she keeps looking for you, and it’s heartbreaking. I’m looking forward to taking you home to your fluffy goddess. I got us an apartment near to where you work.”

“Don’t you mean where I used to work? People are usually fired after not showing up for a few months, and the public library doesn’t have the funding to keep people who are missing on the payroll.”

Bradley shook his head. “The public library system went to bat for you; the branch, with the expansion and renovation, will need extra bodies, so they’re leaving your employment spot open for a period of two years to give investigators a chance to find more leads. Two years was the best they could swing, but you still have your job. Senator Westonhaus insisted on donating extra to cover your wages until you were found or the two years ended. He claims it was only fair, as you’d saved his life. He also handled making sure your apartment’s lease was broken without penalty. I handled moving your stuff out to our new place. I figured you would get upset with me if I paid rent on a place you weren’t living in. I would have involved you with every step of the process, but for obvious reasons, I couldn’t.”

I struggled to comprehend I could step back into my life after so long locked away. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Bradley tugged me in the direction of the vehicle. “Let’s get you back to the hotel. Then you can decide how to handle things. We’ve been seeing therapists and specialists on this sort of thing in case we found you. It can be an adjustment going back to life, depending on how your captors treated you.”

“I’ve been alone the entire time. I never saw anyone. I was always by myself, and whenever they wanted to come in to where I was kept, they sedated me with some form of gas, I think. I vaguely remember my foot becoming really infected, but they treated it with pills; they would drug me, bring food, and each meal would have the pills I needed to take. I took them, because I knew my foot was infected.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Bradley replied. “Obviously, if they wanted to have killed you, they would have, and deciding to take unknown pills when you have no other viable choice is sensible. You did the right thing, since you have a working foot and you seem okay enough.” To make it clear he wanted me at the hotel yesterday, he herded me to the car, keeping a close eye on my stride to make sure I didn’t limp, trip, or fall. “I don’t know what they did to your foot, but you’re walking a lot better now.”

As he took me where I wanted to go, I forced my sore, tired feet into motion and walked under my own steam, although I kept close. I recognized I wouldn’t have done the same before having been locked away for a maddening period of time, but I decided to ignore what I refused to change until I had no choice but to face the problem. “They fixed it, and I don’t understand why.”

“I don’t, either,” he admitted. He eased his arm away from me long enough to unlock the rental car and open the back door for me.