LITMIR.BIZ

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muscles of his chest and shoulders put up a painful protest. He worked them slowly for a moment, taking care not to make his condition any worse than it already was.

      He had to find the strength to get past that locked door and get the hell out of this crazy woman’s cabin.

      There were no windows in the cellar, no doors visible besides the one at the top of the stairs. As much as his wobbly legs protested the idea, he had to go upstairs and try to figure a way to get through the locked cellar door. Ramming it open was no option, given his weakened state.

      But maybe he could pick the lock.

      He’d already spent nearly an hour searching the cellar for something to cut himself free of the duct-tape bonds. He’d found a small, rickety cabinet in the corner that held a box of tools. He’d had no luck using the garden shears he’d found inside to cut himself free because he couldn’t get the blades turned to the right angle behind his back to cut the tape. But there had been other tools in the box that might work to unlock the door, hadn’t there?

      He crossed to the box lying on the top of the rough-hewn cabinet and started to pick through the contents, looking for something—

      There. A jumble of old paper clips, some of them hooked together, some twisted apart. If he was very lucky, the lock on the door at the top of the stairs would be a simple spring-driven lock, and he could use the paper clip to push it open.

      But if it wasn’t...

      He grabbed a pair of pliers and twisted one of the bigger paper clips until he’d fashioned a crude tension wrench, then curled the tip of one of the smaller clips into a modified hook, hoping they’d work well enough to get the job done.

      “Picking a lock isn’t as hard as you’d think,” an FBI special agent had told Dallas once, and then he’d proceeded to explain just how to beat a pin-and-tumbler lock. “It’s all about the pins. That’s how a key works—getting the pins in the right position to turn the cylinder.”

      He carried his tools up the steps and slid his makeshift tension wrench into the keyhole, turning it one way, then the other, until he was satisfied which way the cylinder had to turn to open. Applying a little pressure to move the cylinder just out of position, he inserted the second paper clip into the keyhole.

      His hands shook and his legs began to ache, feeling as if they’d suddenly lost the ability to hold him upright, but he kept at his probing examination of the lock’s internal workings. One by one, he painstakingly pushed the pins up until they caught on the ledge, clearing the cylinder. Finally, the last pin clicked into place, and he used the larger paper clip to turn the lock.

      The dead bolt slid back into the door with a soft click, and he gave the door a push open.

      He eased into the kitchen and looked around, squinting as bright daylight assaulted his eyes. Around him, the cabin was quiet and still.

      He looked around the house to make sure he was still alone, then checked out the front door to assure himself Nicki and the Jeep were still gone. Then he went into the bedroom to find the phone.

      But it was gone, no longer sitting on the bedside table where it had been the night before.

      He checked the floor on either side of the table and even crouched to check under the bed. No phone.

      A room-to-room search of the cabin revealed no sign of the missing phone. Nor did he find a computer or any sort of modem or router with which to access the internet if he wanted to reach the authorities that way instead.

      He sank into one of the kitchen chairs and willed his wobbly legs to stop shaking. He clearly wasn’t going to be able to call in the cavalry, so he was going to have to get the hell out of this cabin on his own somehow.

      But first, he needed something to eat. Some of his unsteadiness might be from sheer hunger. He pushed himself to his feet and crossed to the refrigerator, bracing himself to find it as empty as the bedside table had been. But the refrigerator was well stocked, and he grabbed a couple of eggs from the carton for his breakfast.

      She had plenty of cookware in her cabinets, too. Made sense, he supposed—she’d said she worked as a diner cook, hadn’t she? As he heated a pat of butter in one of the pans on the stove, he grabbed a couple of slices of bread from the bread box and stuck them in the toaster.

      The smell of toasting bread and frying eggs made him almost light-headed with hunger, but once he’d wolfed down his breakfast, he felt considerably better.

      But did he feel well enough to walk out of these woods to seek help?

      He left the pans for Nicki to wash—the least she could do, considering she’d locked him in her cellar—and took another look around the house, this time for some sign of who Nicki really was and what had compelled her to lock him up rather than let him call the authorities for help.

      She’d admitted to knowing who he was. Which meant she had to know that he’d disappeared somewhere between Washington, DC, and wherever he was now. That foul play was suspected.

      Or was it? Did people think he’d disappeared on his own? He’d been on the phone with a man named Cade Landry when those BRI thugs had run him off the road and dragged him out of his banged-up car. But Landry had been a fugitive. For all Dallas knew, he still was. He might not have had the opportunity to tell anyone what he’d heard over the phone.

      So what, exactly, did Nicki think she knew about him?

      There were no personal items anywhere around the cabin, he realized after another search of the place. She probably had her driver’s license and other ID with her, since she’d taken the Jeep into town, but most people had other personal records scattered around the house, didn’t they?

      Back at his apartment in Georgetown, he had a whole four-drawer filing cabinet full of tax information, personal records, vehicle papers and more. He even had a box in his closet filled with things he’d kept from his high school and college days.

      As far as he could tell from his search, Nicki had nothing like that stashed anywhere around the cabin.

      He sat on the bed and looked around the small bedroom. Simple gray curtains on the window. Plain pine dresser that matched the bedside table. The bed was little more than a mattress and box set on a metal frame. No headboard or footboard. Plain gray sheets and pillowcases, plus a couple of matching waffle-weave blankets that acted as the bedspread.

      A large woven rag rug stretched over the hardwood floor next to the bed, the hodgepodge of blues, grays, black and white offering only a little more color than the rest of the decor.

      Drab surroundings for a woman as vibrantly beautiful as his hostess-turned-captor.

      He pushed himself up from the bed and looked around, trying to make sense of all that had happened to him over the past twelve hours. And no matter which way he looked, it all came back to the same thing.

      Nicki.

      Who the hell was she? And what did she want from him?

      * * *

      BY NINE THIRTY, the breakfast crowd began to thin out, but Del McClintock and part of his posse lingered, nursing cups of coffee and chatting quietly in one corner of the diner. Nicki wasn’t sure he was actually waiting for her to end her shift, but Trevor kept shooting troubled looks between her and the corner whenever he popped into the kitchen to check on things.

      Nicki ignored her boss, taking advantage of the lull in customers to clean the griddle in preparation for the next crowd of hungry diners. She also tried hard not to think about the man locked in her cellar, without much luck.

      People didn’t starve to death in two hours. And if worse came to worst on the bathroom end of things, she could run to the thrift store in Abingdon to pick up some clean clothes for him.

      Everything would work out. She’d figure it out somehow.

      Trevor stuck his head in the kitchen door. “Bella’s here. Her mama’s neighbor’s takin’ good care of her, looks

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