Paula Graves - Secret Intentions

As he was about to look away from the truck, a couple of men came out of a side entrance carrying a large black, hard case. Frowning, he focused the binoculars on the case, which was large enough to hold a couple of oversize audio speakers. But that made no sense. Why would they be returning the speakers to the truck when the wedding hadn’t happened yet?

Increasing the zoom as the men shoved the case into the truck, he spotted a scrap of white silk peeking through the narrow space between the case and its hinged cover. His internal radar pinged loudly.

“Jesse?” Rita’s voice buzzed in his ear.

“What was Evie wearing the last time you saw her?” he asked.

“A slip, I think. Her dress is still hanging in here on a hook.” Rita paused. “My robe is missing—she may have borrowed it to go take a look at the sanctuary. She said she wanted to take a peek before the ceremony.”

That scrap of silk he saw might have been from a robe, Jesse realized, alarms sounding like a Klaxon in his brain. “I’ve got to go. If you see Evie, have her call me.” He hung up the phone and started the car, pulling out of the parking slot and easing to the edge of the road.

The truck was on the move as well, rolling slowly toward the exit drive of the church parking lot. It paused to let passing traffic go by, then pulled onto the road, crossing in front of Jesse.

He looked at the driver. Didn’t recognize him, but there was something about the man that rang all of Jesse’s warning bells.

He looked like a mercenary, he realized. Military haircut, hardened expression, cold, focused eyes. There was a second man in the passenger seat of the truck cab, although Jesse didn’t get a good look at him.

He pulled out his phone and called Isabel. “I’m on the move.” He explained his hunch tersely. “Rita said someone tipped off the guards. It could be a decoy.”

“And you think someone’s kidnapped Evie?”

“I hope to hell not.” He wanted to believe that any second now Evie would call him on the phone and make him feel like an idiot. A relieved idiot. But he couldn’t risk staying put. “I need you to cover the church until I get back.”

“Do you want anyone else to back you up?”

“No time for that. Just cover the church in case I’m wrong.”

“On my way,” Isabel said.

Jesse pulled onto the road, keeping a careful distance from the truck. If the driver and his comrade were indeed mercenaries, they’d know how to spot a tail. So he had to be better at tailing than they were at spotting.

He glanced at his cell phone, willing it to ring. He’d love nothing more than to be wrong about his hunch.

But the phone remained stubbornly silent.

* * *

T HE RUSH OF SECURITY toward the bride’s room must have been part of a diversion, Evie thought, pushing hard against the confines of her makeshift coffin. Her eyes still burned, and she was breathing with a distinct wheeze, but enough of the pain had subsided for her to shove it aside and concentrate on the bigger problem.

The box was almost as wide as it was long, which made moving around inside easier than it might have been, but it wasn’t quite long enough for her to straighten out completely. If she had to stay in this position much longer, her limbs would start to cramp up.

The sensation of movement and the engine noise rumbling in her ears confirmed she was on the move. Probably in the back of a truck. So her kidnappers didn’t want her dead.

At least, not yet.

SSU, she thought. Has to be SSU. Since joining Cooper Security a few months earlier, she’d learned a lot about the former Special Services Unit of MacLear Security. For over a year, Jesse and the rest of the Coopers had been involved in several run-ins with the ruthless group of guns for hire who’d survived to reunite after MacLear had collapsed under the weight of scandal. Evie wasn’t sure what they called themselves now, but thanks to the Coopers, she did know their activities were funded by a limited-liability company called AfterAssets.

And she knew they were after her father’s secrets. They must be planning to use her as leverage against her father.

Oh, Jesse, she thought. You were right. They did crash the wedding.

She had to find a way out. But from the inside of a box, there wasn’t a lot she could do to free herself. The borrowed robe confined her movements, especially with a piece of the hem stuck between the hinged pieces of the case. She tried tugging it free but it was firmly wedged, so she wriggled out of the robe, giving herself more mobility.

Think, Evie. What does the box look like on the outside?

It had to have latches, didn’t it? She could see almost nothing inside the closed box, but by running her hands along the walls of the box, she discovered what felt like the inner workings of hinge hardware on one side, which meant there were probably latches on the other side. If she could find something to slide between the body of the box and the lid, she might be able to nudge the hasps open.

Panicked laughter bubbled in her throat. If only she’d followed Megan Cooper’s suggestion to keep a knife in her bra at all times! But she wasn’t a Cooper, and cloak-and-dagger shenanigans didn’t come naturally to her. She had been a Cooper Security employee for just four months now, barely long enough to get through her orientation training and learn the ropes of working for a high-octane security company.

She made herself focus. No knife in her bra, but did she have something else she could use to slide through the narrow slit between the box and the lid? Maybe her earrings? They were made of copper, long and dangly, but flat and thin as well, as thin as the blade of a knife. She wasn’t sure they were substantial enough to give her the leverage she needed, but it was worth a shot, wasn’t it?

She took off one of her earrings, found the narrow crack between the lid and the box, and slid the copper bangle carefully into the space, moving it along until it hit resistance. Repositioning the earring, she pushed and felt something give.

Excitement bubbling in her chest, she pushed on the top of the box, testing its give. Was it her imagination or did it actually shift upward?

She wriggled down the box, probing with the earring until she met another point of resistance around the middle of the box. She repeated her earlier action, cursing when the copper earring snapped into two pieces, one remaining in her hand while the other slid through the crack and disappeared.

Sending up a prayer, she pulled the other earring from her ear and slipped it through the crack. This time, the obstruction gave way. She tested the box again. Definitely more give—through the blurry tears still burning her eyes, she saw gloomy half-light filter through the widening crack.

She had to completely shift positions to get to the final latch, wriggling until her head ended up where her feet had been. After a brief pause to catch her breath, she took care as she probed the third latch, acutely aware that if the earring broke this time, she was out of tools. The copper earring found the obstruction and she pushed against it cautiously. It gave, finally, and she laid her head back, shaking from nerves and the burning pain of pepper spray still stinging her eyes and skin.

If she’d indeed opened the final latch, the top of the box should swing open fully. All she had to do was make it happen.

Her heart pounding like a timpani in her ears, she reached up and gave the top of the box a sharp push. It opened more quickly than she anticipated, the lid swinging back and banging hard against the floor of the truck.

She froze in place, wondering if her captors had heard the noise. But the engine sound didn’t change. They were still moving.