Читать книгу Bounty Hunter Honor - Kara Lennox - Страница 8

Something was wrong. The certainty started as a prickling of unease at the back of Nadia’s neck. But it grew until it twisted in her gut. She glanced first over one shoulder, then the other. Nothing. Nobody.

Then she looked down at the stroller, where her two-year-old daughter had been sleeping soundly while Nadia shopped for baby clothes.

The stroller was empty.

At first, she tamped down her panic and tried to find some logical explanation for Lily’s absence. Had another shopper at the mall found the baby irresistible and picked her up for a quick cuddle? Had Lily, getting more clever with her hands by the day, unfastened her safety strap and crawled out of the stroller herself?

But a quick scan in all directions at the baby store produced no sign of Lily. Around Nadia, other women calmly sifted through tiny, pastel-hued dresses and booties, chatting among themselves. No one sensed the terrible rent in the fabric of Nadia’s reality. But her baby was gone, vanished like a mist.

Abandoning the stroller, Nadia ran out into the mall, looking frantically for her child. Nothing. Everything looked deceptively calm, sickeningly normal. No sinister persons were hurrying off with Lily in their arms.

The panic she’d kept at bay rose again in her chest, in her throat, a scream of horror threatening. No, she told herself sternly, she would not panic. Panic would not make Lily reappear. She would tell a store employee, who would make an announcement and contact security.

A gloved hand around her arm stopped her as she was about to carry out her plan. She turned to find a blond woman with sharp, rodentlike features gazing malevolently at her. The woman was well turned out, in slim black pants and a fitted silk blouse, her hair expertly cut and highlighted, but nothing could have made her pretty given the sneer on her face.

“Not a sound,” she said softly, her voice carrying the trace of cigarettes and a Russian accent. “If you ever want to see your daughter again, you won’t raise an alarm, you won’t call the police, you won’t tell anyone. Do you understand?”

Frozen inside, all Nadia could do was nod. “Is this Peter’s doing?” But she already knew. After her divorce, she’d spent months watching her rearview mirror, screening phone calls, checking the locks on windows and doors. All that time, there’d been no word from her ex-husband. Just within the past couple of weeks, she’d finally begun to feel safe.

She’d been a fool.

The blond woman didn’t answer her question. Instead she handed Nadia a folded piece of paper. “The nonnegotiable terms for Lily’s safe return are here. Follow them to the letter and your daughter will not be harmed.”

Nadia accepted the paper, her hands numb, her whole body turned to cold lead. This wasn’t happening. This could not be happening. She should grab this woman, scream for help. But even as the woman strode confidently away, out of the store and into the mall where she quickly blended in with the crowd, Nadia remained mute, fears for her daughter’s safety paralyzing her.

She opened the folded paper, though she was already pretty sure what the terms would be. She had access to something Peter wanted very badly, and it wasn’t his daughter.