Fields' Guide to Abduction, - [famous ebook reader TXT] 📗

With the killer Chihuahua captured and handed off to Plaid-Shirt, Javier’s plans to show me the stables fell by the wayside. “I will take you to your suite.”

“Listen, I appreciate you thought I was in danger but—”

“I didn’t think.” He wagged a finger at me and his lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I knew. That Zeta tried to kill you.”

“Why are you so worried about my safety?”

“Ignacio wants to meet you. If anything happened to you, he’d have my head.”

I suspected he meant that literally.

Javier led me down an endless hallway and flung open the door to a bedroom fit for a queen. The ceilings rose twelve feet. I’d need a stepstool to climb onto the white damask covered bed. The view out the French doors was of the sun setting behind a neighboring mountain.

“These will be your rooms.”

At least if I was on the bed I’d be out of Consuela’s reach.

He glanced at his watch. “Dinner will be ready soon. I’ll send the medic to look at your wrist.”

“Señor Diaz—”

“Javier,” he corrected. “Please call me Javier.”

If that’s how he wanted it. “Javier, what’s the plan? Are you going to keep me here forever?”

“We’ll talk about it at dinner.”

That was not encouraging.

Javier smiled and backed out of the room.

The snick of a lock told me I wouldn’t be exiting until he was ready.

I hurried over to the glass doors.

Locked. Of course.

No key. Of course.

And the glass looked impossibly thick. Bullet-proof. Of course.

I walked into the bathroom and found a full counter. Box after box. A Chanel blush, still new in its box. I picked up the package and looked at the color. Mine. The same was true with everything from the array of lipsticks to the mascara. Javier had provided the right cleanser, the right serum, the right moisturizer.

Even the right brand of toothpaste.

They’d been in my villa at the resort. Gone through my things.

Creepy-crawlies skittered down my spine.

I returned to the bedroom and pulled open a dresser drawer.

Lavender sachets scented La Perla lingerie and a shell pink pajama set.

I picked up a bra. The right size.

Ugh.

Killers had gone through my underwear looking for sizes.

The shudder that racked my body shook my teeth.

Tap, tap.

I dropped the bra, slammed the drawer, and glanced at the locked door. “Come in.”

The door swung open and a slender young man with a first-aid kit appeared in the doorway. “My name is Manuel. Señor Diaz sent me to look at your wrist.”

My wrist was sprained. And the sprain was mild. “I’m fine.”

He donned an I-know-you’re-probably-right-but-I-have-to-make-sure-or-someone-may-shoot-me expression. “I need to look.”

These people were killers and I was alone. There was no point in antagonizing them. Not until I had a plan. “Fine.”

He left the door open behind him.

For an instant, we both looked at the hallway.

“There is no place to run.” Manuel’s tone was apologetic. So was his shrug. “Even if you could get out of the house, the terrain is rough, and the nearest town is miles away. Even if you made it there, the people who live there are loyal to Ignacio.”

It was as if he’d read my mind.

I nodded and held out my wrist.

He poked and prodded and squeezed. “It’s a sprain.”

“I know.” All those classes my dad enrolled me in had meant lots of sprains. I recognized them easily.

He took an Ace bandage out of his kit and wrapped it around my wrist.

“Ice would be better,” I told him.

“I will have some sent to your room but you can’t wear ice to dinner.”

But I could wear the bandage. And a wrapped wrist would give Javier the idea that something positive had been done.

“Will you wear it? Just for tonight?” Fear flickered in his eyes. “Please?”

“Fine.”

“Thank you. I’ll make sure you have the ice before you go to bed.” He closed up his kit. “Señor Diaz asked me to tell you there are clean clothes in the closet.”

All with the correct sizes and labels, I had no doubt.

Just how long had Javier Diaz been planning my abduction?

With a nod of good-bye, Manuel left my room, closing the door behind him.

I headed to the closet where a couple of evening gowns hung next to a La Perla nightgown with matching robe. The shoes, still in their boxes, were Jimmy Choos and Louboutins (the correct size, of course). A shelf held a Prada city saddlebag and what looked like a large purple amethyst. I stared at that amethyst—a Baker Street bag. Several kid leather boxes embossed with my favorite designers’ logos were stacked on the fainting couch in the center of the little room.

Javier had thought of everything.

I sat on the fainting couch and opened a Penny Preville box.

The earrings inside sparkled up at me.

I was in a world of trouble.

Sure, right now the world was Stella McCartney gowns and—I opened a second box—Ippolita bracelets, but the path behind Javier was strewn with bodies. Somehow, I had to find a way out of Ignacio Quintero’s mountain hideaway before they discovered I’d handed over the drive to Agent Gonzales.

Dinner was served in the formal dining room at a table long enough for twenty.

Javier, looking like a Latin Lothario in an Armani suit, sat to the right of the empty seat at the head of the table. I sat to the left.

Candlelight from an enormous chandelier cast a rosy glow on us.

“We weren’t entirely sure you’d arrive today. Tonight we are having typical Sinaloan fare. That—” he pointed at a butterflied chicken with his fork “—is Pollo a las Brasas con Cebollitas. Tomorrow we’ll have something more elegant.”

I said nothing.

“I’ve chosen a Vouvray to accompany our meal,” Javier continued. “I hope you like it.”

A stranger with an impressive mustache appeared at my shoulder and filled my glass.

Bowls of rice, guacamole, roasted potatoes, beans, and slaw filled the space between Javier and me. And silence. Javier and I had nothing to say to each other.

“You look lovely tonight.” There was no warmth, no approval in Javier’s eyes.

“Thank you.” I’d chosen a Gucci gown and loaded my uninjured wrist with Ippolita bracelets.

More silence. Nothing but the sound of silverware against the china and the tinkle of my bracelets.

This dinner didn’t feel like a meal for a kidnapper and his hostage. It felt like an incredibly awkward date—the kind where the save-me text necessitating an abrupt ending couldn’t come soon enough.

My phone was crushed on a Baja highway. No save-me text was coming. If I wanted saving, I’d have to do it myself.

“That’s an unusual necklace.”

My locket was an antique pave heart. My hand rose to my throat. “My father gave it to me. I never take it off.”

“Tell me about him.”

Tell a drug lord about my dad? I fluttered my eyelashes and borrowed the smile Chariss used to snow men. “There’s not much to tell. My father died when I was in my teens.” I upped the wattage on the smile. “I’d rather talk about you. How did you end up here?” I swept my hand over my plate, indicating the dining room, the house, the job.

“I was educated in the States. Then went on to get