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It was the second week of February and Alexa had reached the point where she’d forgotten what summer looked like, where she half believed the trees had never been green and would never be green again. It was hard to imagine that less than two weeks earlier, she and Nick had been walking hand in hand along the water in Spain, palm trees swaying overhead.
It had been a quick trip, but the change in scenery had done her good, had done them both good. Nick had been less brooding on the way home, and while that was no guarantee he was free of his guilt — she knew better than anyone that negative emotions had a way of popping back up when you least expected them — she hoped eventually he would be able to let it go for good.
The information he’d gotten from Kovaks had been vague, and Nick had spent the time since they’d gotten back working with Clay to uncover more information about Juska’s time in Bosnia.
As expected, she and Nick had had an argument on the flight back about Alexa leaving town, but there had been no heat in it. She’d been firm in her plans to stay in the city and do her part, to not give the Walkers the satisfaction of sending her intohiding, and Nick had given in with less fight than she’d expected.
She appreciated his desire to protect her, but she appreciated his belief that she knew what was best for herself even more. He was like an invisible safety net: ever-present but not obtrusive.
Most of the time.
She came to one of the small streets leading to her parents’ neighborhood and saw that it was blocked off with orange cones.
“Damn,” she muttered, turning right to follow the Detour sign that had been posted on the corner.
The next street had been blocked off too, another Detour sign pointing the way. She glanced at the clock in her car and followed the signs. She would be late, but she was close enough that it didn’t make sense to stop and call, and she’d promised her parents after her accident that she would never text or even talk while driving.
She continued down the street and tried to make the left that would loop her back to her parents’ house. That street was blocked off with another Detour sign, and so was the one right in front of her. The one-way street to the right was her only option, so she made the turn and sighed, trying not to beannoyed. She was the first one to complain about potholes and faded dividing lines. She should be glad the city was doing something to improve the roads.
She started down the side street, hitting the breaks when she saw that it too was blocked off. She looked around, wondering why it was so empty. Where were all the road workers?
Her stomach turned over, fear blossoming in her chest. She hit the locks on her door just to make sure they were still engaged and looked in her rearview mirror, gauging the distance to back up and return the way she came.
It wasn’t far, and it wasn’t like there was any traffic, but the rule-follower in her didn’t want to reverse down the one-way street in case someone else pulled in behind her.
She took the only other possible route, another narrow side street that ran behind a row of houses like an alley. It was empty except for a few trash cans, and she exhaled her relief when she confirmed that there were no orange cones or detours in sight.
She was halfway down the street, already navigating the alternate route to her parents’ house in her mind, when a black van turned into the alley in front of her.
She slowed down, her heart hammering in herchest, and looked in the rearview mirror to see another black van closing the distance behind her.
Adrenaline flooded her body. She reached for her phone, but the van in front of her was barreling toward her. It careened to a stop a few feet from her car as she glanced down at her phone, frantically opening her contacts to call Nick, cursing herself for not bothering to set up speed dial.
The doors to the van opened and two men dressed in black, their faces covered with ski masks, dropped to the pavement and sprinted toward her. She’d opened her contacts, but the men were almost on top of her car, their approach causing everything in her body to slow down until it felt like her fingers were made of lead.
She saw Nick’s name on her phone when the driver’s side window shattered next to her shoulder.
She screamed and shrank away as one of the men used his elbow to further smash the safety glass. He pulled it from the window frame with his hands, clad in black gloves, and reached in to unlock her door.
Then she was being pulled from the car, kicking and screaming, her phone falling onto the floor near the brake pedal.
It happened fast. One minute she was still in hercar, the next something was being held over her nose, a piece of fabric that smelled foul and burned her nose as she breathed it in against her will.
The world faded as they shoved her into the van, the edges of her vision darkening. The last thing she saw were dark eyes staring at her through the holes of a ski mask.
She knew those eyes… She reached for the knowledge but it was fading along with everything else.
The door to the van slid shut and everything went black.
14
Nick checked his phone for the hundredth time as he paced the floor, his stomach in knots.
Something wasn’t right.
Alexa had left for her parents’ house two hours before with a promise to text him when she arrived. She knew he was worried about letting her go alone. He’d even offered to tail her, sit outside so she wouldn’t have to explain to her parents, but she’d said it would be too weird if they happened to notice him sitting in a car across the street. They would recognize him, would get the wrong idea about what he was doing there.
He took that to mean they’d done their homework, that they knew what he looked like. Now he cursed himself for not insisting. He should have toldher it wasn’t a debate, that she’d agreed to follow rules that would keep her safe when he’d agreed not to push the issue of sending her into hiding.
