Sandman (Unknown Identities #3) Read online

  The car slowed, braked, and shifted to reverse.

  She’d never blindly followed anyone else’s plan for her life. Not even as a child, according to the wild tales her family often shared about her. Tears stung her eyes. Would she ever see them again?

  She vowed to God and all the saints that if she got out of this, she would be better about staying in touch with the people who mattered. She’d emulate Selena and send birthday cards, Christmas letters, and flowers on anniversaries. Why did it take something as drastic as this to make her see how much she’d been taking for granted? How much she’d been focused on past hurts instead of present joys.

  The car lurched forward and around a sharp bend and she heard the distinct ping of gravel against the undercarriage. She moaned against the tape covering her mouth. The further she let them take her from civilization, the lower her chances of survival.

  All she had to barter was the citrine ring that remained on her finger. It would have to be enough. Losing it would be devastating emotionally, but Matthew would have said survival trumped sentiment. He’d been the good guy, the steady one while they were together and their brief relationship had set the standard for her that no other man since had been able to meet. For all his thoughtfulness and mile-wide romantic streak, Matthew had been a paragon of practicality. Except for the extravagant ring she’d worn since the day he’d given it to her.

  Desperate, she shimmied and twisted, ignoring the rip of her blouse or the pain of her head rapping against the hard surfaces as the car bounced along. Finally her hands were in front of her.

  She pushed the blindfold up into her hair and peered at the trunk’s safety release. If this vehicle was anything like hers, a light would flash on the dashboard panel when the trunk was open. It was worth the risk.

  Her mind danced back and forth between the bad situation and the worst case scenario. Timid had never worked for her and this seemed like a bad time to turn over a new leaf.

  She felt the car slowing down. Now or never. Flipping the latch, she pushed up the trunk lid and rolled out of the car.

  Blinking against the rush of daylight after so much darkness, she scrambled to her feet and ran away from the vehicle, searching for any kind of cover.

  Adrenaline propelled her toward a stand of trees. Brakes squealed and tires skidded in the gravel road. Hard voices shouted from behind her.

  The gravel bit into her feet, and her cuffed hands made her feel awkward as she ran. The tape on her mouth made it difficult to breathe. She didn’t care about anything but getting away.

  Almost there. Almost there. She skidded across the slippery weeds and grass just off the road.

  The ground near the trees seemed to erupt, suddenly coming to life. She screamed uselessly behind the duct tape.

  She’d run right into a trap.

  The ground-covered figure raised a gun.

  “Get down!”

  She dropped to the ground immediately, before she registered that the order hadn’t been delivered in English. Or even her native Italian.

  Spoken in Polish, with all the grave authority of a military commander, the order had her questioning everything about her situation. Had she been transported overseas after all and somehow diverted to Poland?

  And why? Nothing made sense, and nothing would until she got out of here. Thank heaven she was fluent in several languages so she could talk her way out of whatever she was mixed up in.

  Gunfire sounded over her head. She tried to count the shots, but gave up, concentrating instead on making herself as small and invisible as possible.

  She worked at the edge of the tape on her mouth. If she survived she wanted to be able to speak clearly. The sting and pull of the thick adhesive against her cheek as one corner came free was nothing compared to the painful terror pulsing in her veins. She had to get out of here, away from whoever had taken her.

  On her belly, ignoring the damage to her blouse, she crawled deeper into the shelter of the trees.

  The gunfire stopped and she heard deep, angry voices trading demands and denials in English. She knew that was an important detail, but her only concern was reaching a safe hiding place while the people with weapons were distracted.

  The ground was cold and the leaves that had dropped in the prior months were damp with recent rain. She hoped that meant she was still in the United States and within quick reach of her brother or Selena. Uncle Torry would move heaven and earth if he knew she was in trouble. The image of their faces bolstered her. This could be over soon.

  Lost in her fantasy of finding a phone and being rescued, she didn’t realize the second flurry of bullets had ended.

  “Hold!”

  Again, the one-word command was given in Polish.

  Renata stopped moving, her hope of escape dwindling. Angry and frightened, she kept her face turned away from this new threat.

  “Do not run.”

  Said gently, in Italian this time, she recognized the voice. She rolled over to get a better look at the man looming over her. The sun behind him put her in mind of avenging angels. He was covered in debris from the ground, but she recognized the tactical gear underneath the disguise. Though his face was smeared with dirt and paint to help him blend completely with his surroundings, the fire in those blue eyes was unmistakable.

  Avenging angel indeed. She’d thought he was long dead. Confused, she was almost grateful for the tape across her mouth. It gave her a perfect excuse for not providing a coherent reply.

  “I will be back for you.”

  He’d said something similar years ago and disappeared. He’d died, according to the newspapers. Maybe she was dead and just hadn’t accepted it yet. She looked up at the clear sky while feeling every moldy leaf and raspy twig beneath her. A place like this could qualify as purgatory, in her opinion.

  He dropped to one knee and gently peeled the tape from her face.

  “Grazie. Thank you,” she repeated in English. She couldn’t quite bring herself to say his name. “Where am I?” she asked in Polish.

  He didn’t reply, just stared silently at her for so long she decided she must be dreaming. She reached out with her cuffed hands to touch him, anything to confirm she wasn’t hallucinating. “Matthew?”

  He lurched back, out of reach. The blue eyes that had so often sparkled with laughter now flared with something akin to sorrow. “Wait here.” He pulled out a knife and sliced through the plastic ties. “Do not make me chase you.”

  She nodded, rendered mute by the bizarre situation combined with the jolt of seeing him here. He strode away from her, back toward the road, and she pushed herself to a seated position in an attempt to see what was going on.

  Countless places on her body hurt, from the sun in her eyes to the scrapes on various parts of her body. She wasn’t dead, though she smelled bad enough that the comparison was likely right on target.

  The trembling started in her hands, sneaking up her arms across her torso and down her legs until she felt like her own private earthquake. Not more drugs.

  No, this was shock, she realized dully as a dark veil stole over her eyes, narrowing her view and swiftly blotting out the sun.

  Chapter Four

  December 30, 1:19 p.m.

  She’d called him Matthew.

  Sandman hadn’t bothered thinking of himself with that name in five years. He tested it out in his mind. It felt good and right. Especially under these circumstances. He may have been sent out here under his code name, but he had no intention of blindly following the orders Messenger had given this time.

  Matthew. He practiced thinking of himself that way. The name fit the man he’d been when he was young, idealistic, and in love. With Renata Vaccaro, a woman well out of his league.

  That young man was long gone, replaced by the altered, jaded man he’d become. Meaning she was still well out of his league. But none of that would prevent him from doing the right thing. For her.

  He pushed his emotions aside, striding up the road to conf
ront her kidnapper. Slumped against the front of the car, the man posed little threat. Too bad. Matthew was spoiling for a good fight.

  He’d been awake for twenty-seven hours straight – nowhere close to his maximum tolerance – and going a few rounds with this loser would take the edge off. The orders were to kill the kidnapper, how it got done was agent’s choice. Matthew intended to make him suffer.

  He’d noticed Renata’s wounds and felt a little turnabout was only fair. Securing his rifle and pistol, he shrugged out of the ghillie suit.

  “Stand up.”

  “Can’t. You caught my knee.”

  “Aw, what a shame.” Matthew looked down at him. “Was it this one?” He ground his boot heel into the telltale hole oozing blood.

  The kidnapper shouted and then raised his hand. The nine millimeter pistol he was holding shook violently. Fear or pain, Matthew didn’t care about the cause.

  “Go ahead and shoot.”

  “I will.”

  Matthew stepped closer and spread his arms. “What?” He glanced at the ground. “Did you lose your glasses? Take the shot.”

  “I will. I’ll do it.”

  “Hurry up,” he said, kneeling in front of the kidnapper, pressing his chest to the barrel. “I have better things to do. Your victim needs my assistance.”

  The man still hesitated and Matthew snatched the weapon away. He checked the load, confirmed there was only one round left and tucked it into his waistband at the small of his back.

  “What do you want?”

  “Why did you take her?”

  The wounded man tried to scoot away. “I didn’t.”

  Matthew raised his foot over the other man’s knee once more.

  “Stop. I’m begging you. I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know anything.”

  Matthew was getting damned tired of these useless claims of ignorance. To his astonishment, the other man started to cry. If it was an act, it was an excellent performance. “How did Galloway contact you?”

  “Who?” The wounded man looked past Matthew to old farm house. “This, umm, that… was that a woman? I swear didn’t know she was in there. They just pay me to drive.”

  Shit. Matthew didn’t want to believe him, but he wasn’t acting sharp enough to run in the same circles as Galloway.

  It had taken all his skill, charm, and Tisdale’s online expertise to set up this opportunity to ‘purchase’ Renata. Distasteful, yes, but it had been the fastest course of action. Matthew hadn’t thought the kidnapper would trust such an important hand off to a delivery man.

  Something else was going on. He quickly reviewed the developments and the orders since Messenger had dragged Galloway into the confinement facility. No loose ends. He had Renata, but he didn’t have anything more than an email to track the kidnapper. This wasn’t going well.

  He slid a glance in Renata’s direction. Weak and wounded, she couldn’t afford for him to waste much time. “Do you want to live longer than the next ten minutes?”

  The driver nodded fervently.

  “Then answer honestly and quickly.”

  Another nod.

  “When did you get the call for this job?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. Late.”

  Well, that fit. He’d made contact with the kidnapper online around noon. They’d finally agreed to make the exchange after half of the money had cleared the banks. Final payment was due upon her arriving alive. The kidnapper had deferred to Matthew’s choice, this abandoned farm, as the exchange point.

  “Why did you shoot at me?”

  “You shot first.”

  Yes, he had taken the first shot, to protect Renata. When the trunk had popped open and she’d emerged, he wasn’t about to let anyone kill her in front of him. To hell with the orders. There were some things a man, couldn’t be expected to handle. “You were about to shoot the package you were delivering.”

  The driver shook his head, his gaze lowered. “I didn’t know she was there. I swear it. The gun… I only wanted to get her back in the car. I was supposed to drive right up to the house.” He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “That’s your decision,” Matthew replied with zero sympathy. “How were you contacted?”

  “Text message.”

  “Show me.”

  “Phone’s in the car. The cup holder.”

  Matthew would deal with that in a minute. “And the money and keys?”

  “Standard rate and set up.”

  “Standard? Explain,” Matthew barked, checking his watch. If this guy was the kidnapper, he played a damn fine lackey.

  “Look. The economy sucks I need the money. I’ve got kids.”

  “They must be proud of you. Explain,” Matthew repeated, his tone low and deadly.

  “Standard rate is five hundred dollars for me to move a car from one place to the other. Bonus for distance or inconvenience,” he began. “I show up at the garage and take the car matching the license plate in my text message. The money and a phone number are always under the seat, the keys in the visor. I text the number on the money with my password, and get the delivery address.”

  It sounded plausible. “Then what?” Matthew wanted something definitive.

  “Then I drive, park the car at the destination and walk away.”

  “How do you get back to the city?”

  “That’s my problem.”

  Matthew looked at the man’s knee again. It would be a big problem today. The kidnapper wouldn’t care if the driver walked away from today’s delivery. If Messenger knew anything about this wrinkle in the situation, he would assume Matthew would follow orders and kill the driver too. Based on the orders, it was the only option.

  “What garage?”

  The driver hesitated, then named a place in Brooklyn.

  It would be his next stop as soon as Renata recovered enough to move. “When you saw the address, you had to wonder about getting back to the city.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?” Matthew prompted.

  “And I figured it would be a long damn walk, but I couldn’t give up the deal.” He scowled up at Matthew. “Thanks to you it’ll be a painful one, but if I renege on a job, I won’t get called again.”

  “And you need the money,” Matthew offered up the now-familiar refrain. He stared at the driver, hating the honesty he’d demanded.

  The poor sap nodded.

  “No one ever tails you or picks you up?”

  “Hell no.”

  “You don’t ever wonder what you’re carrying or who you’re delivering it to?”

  He shook his head. “I just drive.”

  Matthew glared at him. “Then why were you armed?”

  “It was with the money. Happens sometimes.”

  “Fine.” It seemed this guy had just done his job and had no worthwhile intel about the real kidnapper. Just because Matthew wouldn’t trust a stranger to deliver something as valuable as Renata didn’t mean another man felt the same. Galloway had considered her disposable. The kidnapper had broken one deal to sell her to Matthew, the higher bidder. Even Messenger wanted her dead instead of alive.

  What the hell had she gotten into?

  Matthew sighed. He extended a hand to haul the driver to his feet, then he helped him around to the driver’s seat of the compact car.

  Reaching across, he took the cell phone out of the cup holder. That’s when he saw the black bag on the floorboard on the passenger side. It must have slid forward when the driver had reacted to Renata’s escape. The vials and syringes were not standard set up for any kind of courier. He’d been dealing with the kidnapper all along.

  Matthew pretended to ignore it. He could get to his rifle before the driver could get to the main road. Then he could figure out how to make it look like Renata had died too.

  “Sorry about the knee. Get yourself to a hospital.”

  “I can’t take the car.”

  “You’d rather walk? Suit yourself.
” Matthew had better things to do than argue with him and it would only make the kill shot easier. He gathered his weapons and ghillie suit and headed back to the spot where he’d left Renata.

  “It, umm, goes against policy.”

  “Christ,” Matthew muttered, turning to stare at the kidnapper. He raised his pistol. “Close the door. Drive away. Now.”

  His skin pasty, the guy pulled the door shut.

  Matthew lowered his weapon and started for the tree line at a jog, his focus divided between concern for Renata and the shot he needed to take. An explosion roared through the air and blew him forward into the rutted dirt road. Debris pelted his back as he struggled to catch his breath while heat from the blast washed over him.

  He rolled away from the devastation, wishing the UI experiments had given him something a little more useful than inexhaustible stamina. He’d heard rumors that one agent was practically fireproof. He didn’t believe it, but a little heat resistance would be handy about now.

  He waited for a count of five and when nothing else went boom, he took a chance and sat up. Small clumps of burning debris littered the ground between him and the fireball that had once been a car.

  A car and a kidnapper, he thought with no pity.

  A deep sense of foreboding built inside him and he pushed to his feet, hurrying into the trees where Renata should be waiting.

  Someone, apparently more than one someone, wanted her dead. The kidnapper had put her in that trunk and based on his reluctance to drive it away, he’d rigged it to blow. Likely on a GPS cue or timer he couldn’t reset. It was even possible the door had been rigged somehow. It was hard to tell for sure. What he’d learned about explosives as a young Marine had changed with materials and technology through the years. And his time with UI had taught him that few things were as impossible as they might sound.

  If the exchange had gone as planned via email, it would have been him in the driver’s seat with Renata beside him. Messenger didn’t want loose ends on this one. Had he somehow managed to tweak the mission when Matthew wasn’t looking?

  The kidnapper was – had been – an expert mercenary, as ruthless and flexible as Galloway. There were simply too many questions and only one person who might know the answer. Might. If he got her out of here alive. Feeling inordinately exposed and more than a little paranoid, Matthew hurried to Renata.