LITMIR.BIZ

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Master and his two deputies were grilling a fourth man. Tessa didn’t recognize his voice. She needed to see. She bit the inside of her jaw and considered whether she dared.

      The timing was too close to her plans to ignore the situation. If operations or schedules were about to change related to the capture of an informant or an enemy, she needed to be aware.

      Easing forward, she peeked around the wall. A man wearing gray coveralls was secured to the interrogation chair. Her heart bumped her chest. His face already showed signs of torture. The Master stood back and watched as his deputies, Brooks and Howard, questioned the man. The man looked young. Brown hair. Definitely no one she had seen before.

      She waited a moment more for her heart to stop pounding, then she moved.

      Without daring to take a breath she descended the steps and moved around to hide beneath the stairs. Supply containers provided cover for her crouched position. She willed her heart to slow once more, thanked God the fabric of her gown hadn’t so much as whispered against her skin. She inhaled slowly, soundlessly until her breathing returned to normal.

      She wrapped her arms around her knees and maintained her balance on the pads of her feet. They called the man “Smith.” Tessa knew no one named Smith.

      “Considering your fear of capture,” the Master said, his deputies falling silent as he spoke, “why make contact with us? Why not go into hiding?”

      Smith stared up at the Master as if he had no fear at all. Tessa’s eyes widened in expectation of retaliation.

      “I had no place else to go,” he said with no humility whatsoever. “That’s why I took this job in the first place. I’d run out of other options.”

      Brooks, the taller of the two deputies, backhanded Smith, almost toppling the chair.

      “You believe,” the Master went on, “that we have an obligation to take you in? “ He laughed, that deep ugly sound that haunted Tessa’s dreams far too often. “This is no halfway house, Mr. Smith. In fact, in your case, it’s the end of the line.”

      The Master turned and started toward the stairs. Tessa held her breath.

      “Finish this,” the Master ordered, “and feed him to the alligators.”

      Howard, the bald man with the big nose, who leered at her whenever the Master wasn’t looking, chuckled. “Guess you aren’t as smart as you thought, Mr. Smith.”

      “I’m smart enough to know when I’ve grown overconfident. Maybe your Master would be better served to recognize that in himself.”

      Silence fell over the room. The Master paused before reaching the stairs and turned to face the man who dared to challenge him.

      “Your soldier, Kennamer, liked to brag about how you’re fearless,” Smith continued. “How you’re untouchable.” He shrugged. “Seems funny to me that if that’s the case, you just had a major operation go south on you. But then,” Smith added, “maybe that’s why he also bragged that your god complex would be your downfall.”

      A moment, then two, of thick silence.

      Tessa’s heart stumbled to a near stop.

      “Can we kill him now?” Brooks suggested.

      More of that heavy silence.

      “Perhaps not just yet,” the Master said.

      Surprise flared beneath Tessa’s breast. The Master never showed mercy like this. Did he fear that Smith was right? She gave her head a little shake. Impossible.

      “Perhaps,” the Master went on, stepping back toward Smith, “we’ll interrogate Mr. Smith once more after we’ve all had some rest. We’ll have a fresh perspective then.”

      Tessa tilted her head back and watched the Master climb the stairs. If he checked her room and found her missing … No, stop, he wouldn’t. He trusted her to do as she was told after so many years.

      Howard kicked Smith’s chair and cursed about the missed opportunity to feed the pets.

      Tessa shivered at the thought of the swamp surrounding this awful place. Howard and Brooks fed the gators regularly to ensure the beasts considered the area a generous feeding ground. Anyone who stumbled onto the property would likely never make it even close enough to enter the electronic surveillance field.

      The whole compound was off the grid. No landlines for communications. Even the power was provided by a massive generator. And the water was obtained from the property and directed into the house via a state-of-the-art filtration system.

      Tessa doubted there was more than a dozen people who even knew of their existence deep in the wooded swampland outside New Orleans.

      But now someone did … this man, Smith. He knew. He was here and still alive.

      Anticipation fired through her as Brooks and Howard stomped up the stairs. The overhead lights extinguished, leaving the room in almost total darkness. Only the dim lights from the electronic equipment provided minuscule illumination.

      Did she dare question this Smith herself? Could he possibly possess information that would help her? Hope bloomed despite the years of desolation that had left her soul barren.

      Smith would die in a few hours. That was a certainty.

      He presented no peril to her.

      Still … he could tell the Master that she’d come down here.

      “Are you going to come out now?”

      The air in Tessa’s lungs evacuated.

      “They’re gone,” Smith said.

      He’d seen her sneak down the stairs!

      She chewed her bottom lip. Would he assume he’d been hallucinating if she didn’t move and didn’t say a word?

      “I know you’re there,” he murmured, his voice weaker now. “You might as well come out.” He made a muffled sound, like a laugh. “I’m obviously in no position to do you harm.”

      But getting caught talking to him could get her killed.

      Tessa couldn’t bear to think what would happen to the child then.

      That familiar ache of fear sliced through her.

      “I could use a drink of water.”

      Tessa blinked away the terrifying thoughts.

      “Please.”

      The desperation in his plea touched her heart … but he was one of them.

      A man who earned money by stealing children.

      She couldn’t trust him.

      Defeat pressed in on her.

      She couldn’t trust anyone.

      Chapter Three

      As much as the desperate urge to escape clawed at him, Riley’s fascination with the girl—no, the woman—staring wide-eyed at him held his full attention.

      This was Tessa Woods.

      He’d carefully reviewed her file. Studied the photos of the sweet seventeen-year-old with the silky blond hair and huge blue eyes. Her friends and family had labeled her sweet and kind. Intelligent and earnest. But naive and far too trusting.

      Was that why nearly six years later she was still alive?

      Or had she been brainwashed into becoming as ruthless as those who’d taken her while on a high school senior class trip only a few miles from her small hometown in Mississippi?

      The well-worn, pink flannel gown fell loosely around her but as she’d moved toward him the soft-looking fabric had molded to her slim frame. He wanted to tell her how desperately her family had searched for her all these years. How they even now

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