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Instead of agreeing, Finley counted with, “What’s your name?”
“Darcy Steiner. I’m from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Well, a few years ago, I was.”
“We were abducted from just outside Lexington, Kentucky. Do you know long I’ve been out?”
“A few hours.” Darcy nodded at Storm. “That little one cried a while, but he seemed to settle so long as he was with you. He curled up tight to your side and went to sleep. He moves a lot when he sleeps.” She looked at Storm, and Finley wondered if that was a look of longing. Did she have children she is awayfrom? Not important, her military brain told her. Stay on the task at hand.
Finley realized that meant the little man would be up soon. She looked around for her pack. “I had a backpack of supplies. I know it was on my back when they drugged me.”
Darcy pointed to another corner. “Will dumped it out looking for something, but I guess he didn’t find it. He left the supplies all strewn out, so I repacked them. I gave the little man one of the pacifiers. I thought it might help him. It seemed to.”
Finley scrutinized the cargo area and saw rope, a few canvas tarps, chains, steel hooks, and a great array of odds and ends she could use for weapons, if need be.
“What did they use this van for?”
“They didn’t. It’s stolen. Why?”
“Darcy, do you want to stay with these guys?”
“Not anymore. I liked that they paid attention to me. Gave me what I needed and Will treated me nice. Then this other man that I have rarely seen since showed up. He seemed to slowly take over. The guys are not as bright as you’d think. Some of them aren’t even from the original group when I first went with them.”
“Brought in recently?”
“Like yesterday, on two of them. Will was nice to me in the beginning, but recently, he and the others treated me differently after ‘Ace, the Avenger’ arrived. I became expendable and Will said I needed to lie low if I wanted to survive. I had a sucky life before joining up with the group, but after this guy showed up, I wasn’t wanted but wasn’t allowed to leave.”
Finley listened and asked quietly, “Do you want to leave?”
“I do now, but I’m not smart enough to get that done. I told Will, I guess he goes by Snake now, to just leave me somewhere, but he said he was under orders to keep me around. I’m stuck.”
“What if I could help you?”
Darcy looked at Finley and gave her a half smile. “You are in the same boat as me. Well, except I think they plan to get a ransom for you.”
“My boss is special forces and runs a civilian agency that hires ex-military. I’m a Marine turned nanny.”
Darcy’s eye grew large. “No shit? So you really think you can get away? But you have that little guy.”
“Trust me when I say this little guy has kickass parents that have equally kickass friends that won’t stop at anything to rescue us. If you honestly want to get away, they will rescue you, too.”
Darcy nodded. “They will come after you and the boy. These guys will kill me before they let someone rescue me. I know too much for them to allow me out of the group. I’m not wanted, but not safe to release. I think Will is the only reason I’m not dead and now that I have seen all this,” she shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, not if I can help you and Storm get away. You seem to be a nice lady. And I hated they took that little one.” Darcy nodded, more firmly this time. “Yeah, I’ll help you and if you can get me out too, that would good.”
“Done. Now, if we’ve been gone a few hours,” she ran her eyes down the inner leg pocket of her pants. The phone was still there. “Looks like they should be doing something soon.”
Darcy continued to whisper to Finley while never lowering her guard. Finley was tied up. That had to change. She hoped Darcy would come out of the corner of the cargo hold to help her.
“Darcy, I need you to bring me my pack and grab the knife out of it.” She couldn’t believe they hadn’t seen it. Storm began to make little noises that Finley couldn’t do more to comfort him than speak soft reassurances to. “Please help me. I can’t comfort him if I can’t hold him. He’ll cry and this little man has a voice. It will alert the men in the front and they will figure out both of us are awake and come back here. I need more time to formulate a plan. Come on. I’ll get us all out of this if you’ll help me.”
“Will said they needed to drop the kid off with another member of the group. That isn’t good because that means you are expendable and no one is nice enough to watch a little kid.” She thought a moment and as she hesitated, Storm began to whimper. Darcy spoke softly to him. “Okay,” she said with a nod of her head.
“Thanks.” Darcy cut through the rope in time for her to soothe a groggy and fearful Storm.
Darcy drew Finley’s pack over closer to her. “What are we going to do?”
“After I give Storm some food and hydrate him, I’m going to change him.”
“Yes, and?”
Finley smiled. She began to scratch the spray paint off the windows that was meant to black out the contents inside, namely her and Storm. “You need to write the words:Help. Call Policein letter reversal. You know, so it is readable from the other side.”
