Page 57 of Taylor’s Warrior

“Ms. Markham, we’ve received word from the USPS—a package has arrived, addressed to your mailbox. We believe it’s most likely from the kidnappers. I and two of my agents are on the way, ETA ten-thirty. Are you able to meet us at the post office at eleven hundred hours, to open the box and identify any distinguishing features on the package?”

The sound of Special Agent Cruz Livingston’s voice—the very thing she’d been desperate to hear for the last few days—froze Taylor to the spot and made her blood run cold. Even her brain ceased to work—or maybe it was just her body refusing to obey its commands. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even speak. And even if she had been able to speak, she had no idea what to say.

“Ms. Markham, are you there? Can you hear me?”

“Er, yes, I’m sorry, Special Agent Livingston. Do you mind if I put you on speaker? Rhys is with me.” He’d come to her office bearing the gift of coffee and stayed for company.

“Go ahead.”

Taylor set her cell phone down on the desk, tapping the button to switch it to the speaker as she did so. If ever there was a time she needed the rock-solid stability of her man, this was it. All of a sudden, both her emotions and her thought processes were scattered like a flock of startled birds. Her concentration evaporated. So much for trying to get ahead of her work early on a Saturday morning.

“Dalton here, Special Agent Livingston. How can we help?”

Taylor listened as the FBI agent repeated what he’d told her—not that hearing it for a second time made it any better. What she’d wanted for days was now actually happening, and she’d frozen.

“Taylor? Are you okay?”

She snapped out of her thoughts to find Rhys watching her with no small concern. Little wonder, since she’d barely registered the end of the call. “Er, yes, I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry,” he assured her gently. “You’re not ready for this, are you?”

Having zoned out after her initial exchange with Livingston, Taylor was unsure of the turn the conversation had subsequently taken. “Ready for what?”

“I had a feeling you finished the call on autopilot. Ready to meet up with Special Agent Livingston and his team to claim the package, and if it’s safe, open it and check it for any useful information? Assuming it’s from the kidnappers.”

Of course she was. That had been the plan all along, and yet…

“I thought I would be, but now it’s here…” She hesitated, trying to find the words to describe her feelings. “What if it goes wrong? I thought⁠—”

“Stop. Hold it right there.” Though his voice was full of compassion, it also held a core of steel that would not be denied.

He reached across the desk and wrapped his hand around hers. “You won’t be doing this alone. I’ll be right there with you—I’m not letting you out of my sight. Then there’s Livingston and his team—they won’t want this to fail.”

“What if it blows up?” Even as Taylor asked the question, she acknowledged how ridiculous it was. Whoever had sent the parcel wouldn’t achieve anything by blowing it up… and her with it.

Rhys came around the table and encouraged her to her feet. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close to his hard strength. “Then we go up together. Not going to happen, fy nghariad. Livingston’s team will scan it for explosives before we get anywhere near it. Besides, if they were stupid enough to do that, it’d achieve precisely the square root of bugger all. I think what we need to do right now is have a word with Nick, bring him up to speed, and get ready to head into town.”

Taylor let her breath out in a long, slow sigh. “I should know better by now. You always make it all right.”

His arms tightened around her. “We make it better together. Come on, let’s talk to Nick.”

>>><<<

“The package has been examined, scanned, and x-rayed, Ms. Markham. It appears to contain only one item—a cell phone.”

Rhys’ eyes narrowed, his attention fixed on Livingston. “No tracker?”

Livingston’s expression was telling. “Not that we’ve been able to detect, but we can’t be certain. Assuming KDT is behind this, they have access to technology right at the cutting edge, so for all we know, there might be a tracker of some sort embedded in the cell itself, that we just don’t have the technology to detect—yet.”

On arriving at the post office, they’d left the pickup to join Livingston and a couple of members of his team in a large, anonymous-looking cargo van parked in the vicinity. Given the package had already been examined by various means, the only action that remained was to open it.

Rhys wasn’t prepared to take any more chances with Taylor’s life and safety than absolutely necessary. “Then we should assume the worst and work on the basis that they’ve traced the progress of the package through the postal system and could even be in town right now.”

“We can’t discount the possibility,” Livingston agreed.

Not exactly what Rhys wanted to hear. “So, what do we think happens when the cell’s switched on?” he asked, only too aware of Taylor’s feelings about the matter. She was sitting beside him, holding onto his hand so tightly, she was in danger of branding his skin with her finger prints.

“If they’ve fitted it with a tracker we can’t detect, then they’ll already know it’s here. If not, it’ll connect to the nearest cell tower in the normal way.” Livingston shrugged. “Could be anything. A call, a text, a voicemail. There’s only one way to find out.”