Chapter 6

Most people went their entire lives without being abducted, but not her. Here she was on her second time as a hostage in fourteen months. Impatiently, Langley shifted in the dirty, sagging, mildewed armchair and wound up with a spring poking her in the butt. With a grimace, she wriggled to the side until she was away from the metal coil.

She had no idea what time it was, only that it was beginning to get dark. That was what she'd been waiting for as she'd made her plans.

Langley looked around again, making sure she hadn't missed a single detail. The room was a disaster. Sheets of cabbage-rose wallpaper limply drooped to the floor, chunks of plaster had come off the walls, spreading dust and debris across the uneven floor. A dead rat lay in the corner, half decayed, and curtains, grayed by years of filth and frayed along the edges, hung limply over the sole window. She'd been lucky. The plywood over the windows in this bedroom and been nailed to the inside and not the outside.

It didn't smell good. Not only was there the stench of decaying animals, there was also a musty, closed-up odor that she couldn't get used to and the dust was so thick, Langley felt as if she could taste it. She hadn't quite been able to acclimate to the scents or the filth.

She continued her visual sweep of the room. A few stray cockroaches clung to the walls, making her shudder. Shards of glass and slivers of porcelain rose up amid the dirt and rubble like tiny daggers. The pieces were too small to be wielded as weapons, and it would be too difficult to hold one long enough to saw through the zip tie binding her wrists. The only other piece of furniture besides her chair was the frame of a standing mirror—the source of the broken glass. The left side of the support had been smashed to splinters, but she planned to use the other wooden mounting.

From the time she'd been put in this bedroom, she'd been plotting her escape. After running through dozens of scenarios, she'd finally settled on the option most likely to succeed. It had been tempting to implement it immediately, but a daylight attempt would fail utterly. Her shoes and the dress prevented quick movement and she'd simply be recaptured.

The dark, though, offered opportunities. It offered concealment.

Judging by the amount of sun creeping through the openings in the plywood, she guessed it was evening. Not much longer and she could go. Find help.

She moved her wrists against the zip tie binding them together and hissed as her abraded skin protested. The kidnapper had forced Sarah to secure Langley's wrists and ankles and her friend had tried to leave her slack, but he'd double-checked her work and tightened them. Langley had barely had time to flex her muscles a small amount. It had given her enough space to ensure her extremities wouldn't go numb, but not enough to work herself out of her restraints. She'd tried to wiggle free for hours with no luck.

It was hard to believe that this morning her biggest concern had been how to stop her best friend from marrying Mr. Incredibly Wrong. Now she had to worry about keeping Sarah—and herself—alive. What terrified her most was that she had no idea what was happening to her friend. The house might be a wreck, but it had been built in the day when walls were thick and blocked sound .

The kidnapper hadn't tried to disguise himself and that had to mean he wasn't letting them walk out of here alive—even if by some miracle Sarah's horrible fiancé paid the ransom. Langley frowned. When she'd been taken hostage in Puerto Jardin, the rebels had worn balaclavas over their faces to conceal their identities and they'd had less worry of being arrested than this man did.

Langley had too much training to believe that rescue was coming. Her father had paid experts to make sure she had a thorough education and Ryder had added to that training. Including showing her how to free herself from multiple forms of restraint and making certain she practiced regularly. She'd complained about it, because even using duct tape to protect her wrists, it hurt, but she was grateful for every rehearsal. Now that it mattered, she had confidence she'd succeed.

For hours, she'd played the role of cowed hostage. She'd been meek and subservient whenever the kidnapper had made an appearance. People underestimated her most of the time and she wasn't above using it when she needed an advantage. Ryder had done it in Puerto Jardin, too, and if she could escape from a Green Beret, the wild-eyed man didn't stand a chance.

The bravado fell flat. There was a big difference between when she'd escaped in South America and today. Ryder had been sent to get her to safety and had been protecting her from harm. The kidnapper would have no compunctions about hurting or killing her.

So, no mistakes on her escape tonight. She had to do it clean.

Yelling from the other room made her stiffen. She couldn't make out the words, but in order for her to hear him through these walls, he had to be shouting at top volume. That meant the kidnapper was furious and that didn't bode well for Sarah or for her either. While part of her longed to confront the guy and take him out with some martial arts moves, she had no delusions that she could defeat an armed man, no matter how much training she had. Especially not in a bridesmaid dress and stilettos.

No, she had to play it smart. Her plan was simple—go out the window, make it down the rutted track of a driveway in her ridiculous footwear, reach the road, and flag down a motorist to call the police.

The possibilities for failure were rife. She battled down the fear and breathed until her hands steadied. Think first, act second, feel later.

She'd been stuck in this chair since she'd been here, and she needed to do more reconnaissance before it became darker. Langley glanced at her wrists and frowned. To break free, she was going to have to tighten the damn zip tie, but first, she needed to stand.

Easier said than done. By the time she managed to get to her feet, her butt felt like a pin cushion from the many times she'd landed on the chair spring. She'd no doubt fall back into the chair a final time from the force of breaking the plastic, but she'd deal with it. She paused, waited to see if her movements had caught the attention of the kidnapper, but the door to the bedroom remained shut. "Move, Langley," she told herself softly.

Lifting her wrists, she grabbed the end of the zip tie between her teeth and pulled it as hard as she could. She gasped as the plastic bit into her raw skin, but she kept going. The tighter it was, the easier to break free and she didn't want to have to do this twice, not when she hurt so much already.

"Here goes nothing," she whispered. She brought her arms over her head, took a deep breath, and gritted her teeth. Then, with as much strength as she could muster, brought her arms down and back, driving her elbows toward her shoulder blades.

Madre de Dios!

She clenched her teeth harder, holding back a scream as the plastic sliced into her tender wrists. In the next instant, the zip tie's lock gave way, and she swallowed a whimper as she hit the chair with enough force to drive the spring hard into her bottom. Tears welled and Langley silently cursed in each of the languages she spoke until the pain subsided enough for her to function again.

Taking a deep breath, she listened intently for signs that the kidnapper had heard something, but it remained quiet. So far so good.

Langley had left most of her hair down for the wedding, but she'd pulled the sides back in a loose, curly fish-tail braid. She reached up, found a hairpin, and used it to shim the two zip tie locks around her ankles. With her hands free, it was easy to depress the locking bar and tug the end loose. At least that had been painless.

She struggled back to her feet, the dress and shoes hampering her every move. Mermaid style. Why the hell had she chosen a mermaid cut? But she knew why. The dress was beautiful, and she'd fallen in love with the raspberry color. Plus, it made her look sexy, and she'd wanted Ryder to see her in it.

Shaking off the thought, she headed to the window. The chiffon court train trailed on the floor, continually getting stuck on the scattered rubbish. It had to go, and maybe she could hack away at the dress, too, at least enough to free part of her legs. She searched the floor until she found a shard of mirror that looked strong enough to do the job.

Bending down to get it without falling took some maneuvering and she carefully grasped the glass. Langley whacked away at the train and found it incredibly difficult to make any progress. She wasted too much precious daylight before she got it off and decided not to bother with an attempt to cut at the satin.

As she straightened, she let the shard slip from her fingers and sighed. If she wanted to reconnoiter the area outside the window, she couldn't afford to dawdle much longer.

Despite ridding herself of the train, Langley still had to mince her way across the debris-laden floor, the stilettos making her balance precarious. The shoes were Ryder's fault, she decided. At five-foot-nine, she never bought five-inch heels, but Ryder was six-three so she could wear them and be shorter than he was. She'd have chosen a different dress and more reasonable shoes if she'd known he wouldn't come to the wedding. It might be easier to walk if she could take them off, but Langley didn't want to risk getting glass in her feet. And yes, the bugs and dead rat didn't make it sound like a splendid idea either.

Things had been simpler the first time she'd been held captive. For one, she'd been dressed more sensibly, and for another, she hadn't had to deal with restraints. Of course, with a platoon of rebels guarding her, she couldn't escape. It had taken a team of Green Berets to rescue her.

Langley's lips quirked briefly in a ghost of a smile. Ryder Pienkowski had appeared scarier than the guerrilla fighters who'd imprisoned her, and while he'd told her he was US Army Special Forces, she hadn't believed him. He'd looked like a mercenary.

And she had to stop thinking about Ryder.

Finally, she reached the window and studied it. The plywood was as deteriorated as everything else in this house. Prying it off with the wood support shouldn't be too hard, the problem would be the noise.

A second potential issue was the height of the sill. It was abnormally high and leveraging herself up with this dress would be a struggle. She could do it—Ryder had regularly upped her workout routine to challenging levels—but how much time would it cost her? Langley shrugged. There was nothing she could do about it.

As she moved the curtains aside, dust and dirt rained down on her and Langley closed her eyes to protect them. She tried to muffle her cough, but it sounded loud. She froze, waiting to hear the kidnapper enter, but the door stayed shut. When the cloud of particles settled, she leaned forward and tried to see outside by peering through a hole in the plywood.

Years of dirt made the panes opaque, spider webs were everywhere, and she could hardly see anything in the miniscule space available.

Shuffling as far forward as she could get, Langley used her back and shoulders to keep the drapes out of her way, and with two fingers, she poked at the wood. On her fifth stab, she broke through and created a hole big enough to get a good view. The sound had been soft as the wood had given way.

It was darker than she'd expected, making it difficult to see much, but it didn't look too overgrown around the window. Stepping back, she studied the plywood, looking for the best place to pry at it, the location that would pop the wood from the window the quickest.

No matter what, she had to save Sarah.

Sarah was the only real friend she'd ever had. Langley's father had been reassigned to a different embassy regularly. She'd lived all over the world: Taiwan, Luxembourg, Belize, Panama, and New Zealand to name a few. She spoke fluent Spanish, French, German, Luxembourgish, and Mandarin and was passable in a half dozen other languages. It had been a great experience, but it wasn't easy to build friendships.

In a lot of ways, the US was more foreign to her than Europe or Central America, but her dad and mom had insisted she attend college back in the States, and no amount of arguing had changed their minds. She'd been out of her element when Sarah had befriended her. She owed her best friend a lot.

There! If she leveraged the wood there, she should be able to break it free with one good shot.

She needed to hurry. The room was dimmer than it had been a few moments ago, and once it was fully dark, escaping would be more difficult. Time to get her makeshift crowbar, get out of here, and get help.

Langley inched her way cautiously through the debris field to the mirror, cursing her shoes the entire way. "Never again. Even if my next boyfriend is a basketball player," she had to pause a moment. The thought of being with someone other than Ryder made her feel queasy. "Even if he's a basketball player," she forced herself to repeat, "I will not wear skyscraper heels again."

By the time she returned to the window with the tapered wood bar, it was pretty much dark. Before long, it would be impossible to see anything.

Wedging the stick of wood under the plywood, she applied her full power to her lever. For an instant, nothing happened, and then, after a screech of protest, the wood gave way with a loud crack. Damn, damn, damn, damn!

She dropped the wood and pushed at the window, adrenaline giving her muscles a boost of strength that sent the sash upward in a rush. Langley didn't hesitate. Ignoring the dead bugs and rubbish beneath her palms, she vaulted herself up and swung her legs outside. As she lowered herself to the ground, she heard the sharp report of a gunshot.

Immediately, there were two crashes, almost simultaneous.

Langley grabbed the sill harder as her ankle began to twist, saving herself from a sprain. As soon as both feet were flat on the ground, she looked around hurriedly for anything she could use as a weapon.

Something that looked like a stairway spindle was off to the side, and as quickly as she dared, she crouched to pick it up. Pieces of wood crumbled off where she held it, but there wasn't time to find something stronger. Langley ran for the front of the house. It was risky in these shoes, but she had to make sure Sarah was safe.

The police. Please be the police. But as she neared the front, there were no emergency lights, no squad cars, no SWAT team. The rescue was up to her, then, because there was zero time to find help. Sarah could be shot, bleeding. She couldn't wait .

With as much speed she could manage, Langley raced for the main door. It appeared as if someone had kicked it in, but she didn't hesitate.

Before she reached the steps to the porch, arms wrapped around her, stopping her in her tracks. The wood fell from her grasp, breaking apart as it hit the ground. Damn it, she couldn't afford to be recaptured.

Langley wouldn't let the kidnapper kill her friend, and she'd fight the son of a bitch with her last breath if that's what it took to save Sarah.