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  He tried to stand, but Burke locked his grip.

  "Stay calm, son. She wasn't found at the scene, which is a good sign. It means she's probably still alive."

  Seth stared at Burke, horror etched in the lines of his face. Burke steeled himself for a violent outburst. But Seth closed his eyes and took long, even breaths.

  Burke watched in admiration as Seth got himself under control. It was obvious that the younger man was in love. He probably didn't know it yet, but Burke did. He'd seen it grow as Seth became more and more involved in Adri-enne DeBlanc's life. Knowing from experience how love can turn a person's world inside out, Burke understood the strength Seth wasexerting to stay quiet and still.

  "We expect to be able to talk to the surviving prisoner by tomorrow. Meanwhile, you need to rest."

  "Rest, hell!" Seth clenched his jaw and took another deep breath. "The mob has her. I've got to find her. She could be—"

  Burke's hand clamped down on Seth's shoulder. He shook him slightly. "Listen to me, Lewis. You've got a job to do. The police want to question you about what you saw and heard inside the house before the raid went down. I have a team working with the police on finding Adrienne. Crime scene investigators are going over the bus now. We'll find her." He squeezed Seth's shoulder one more time for reassurance.

  Seth wiped his face with his good hand. Lord help him, his princess was in the hands of the Cajun mob. The thought of what they might do to her horrified him.

  Guilt ripped through him with razor-sharpness. "I should have known Senegal would do this. I should have anticipated it."

  "Come on, son, let's get you out of here. I'm going to have-the doctor give you a sedative."

  "No!" Seth could hardly breathe, he was exerting so much effort to keep from tearing up the place. Adri-enne was missing, possibly injured. "Don't let them sedate me."

  Burke's sharp brown eyes held his for a brief moment. Then he nodded and opened the door into the main triage area of the emergency room.

  Seth held his bandaged hand next to his ribs as he walked out behind Burke. Jones was standing with another agent, Mason Bartley, who'd been in on the raid.

  Bartley was speaking. "Hard to even imagine how much money an operation like that could rake in. Enough to be set for a lifetime, for sure. Sometimes it's hell being on the right side of the law." Bartley laughed.

  "Yeah, well, I like it on this side," Jones replied. "Hey, Lewis, take a look." Jones inclined his head.

  Seth turned. A dozen feet away, the police were leading Arsenault out of the other private treatment room. His hands were handcuffed behind him.

  At the sight of the tall mobster who had caused Adri-enne so much hurt, the anger Seth had held in check boiled over. He elbowed his way forward until he was face to face with the hit man. A massive bandage covered Arsenault's swollen nose and his right eye was bright red and swollen shut. Seth clenched Arsenault's shirt with his left hand.

  "You're going to rot in jail, Arsenault. Tell us where Adrienne is. Maybe you can make a deal. What has Senegal done with her?"

  Tony Arsenault recoiled. "Get this maniac away from me."

  Seth smiled. "You know she had nothing to do with the drugs. Why don't you admit it? You're the one who set up her investment in Cajun Perk."

  Arsenault stood up straight and looked Seth in the eye. "Cajun Perk? What are you talking about? That was Mrs. DeBlanc's personal investment. I know nothing of drugs."

  "You're a liar."

  Arsenault looked around and shrugged. "Mrs. De-Blanc demanded to invest in the coffeehouses. I do not know what you are talking about."

  "The bastard's lying," Seth grated. "What kind of scum are you, using an innocent woman as a scapegoat? That's why you had her abducted, so she couldn't testify against you."

  Seth turned around, to find the uniformed policemen staring at their shoes. Burke's lips were pressed together, and Bartley and Jones exchanged an uncomfortable glance.

  Phillip Jones spoke up. "I still say she had to know. I think you're blinded by love, Lewis."

  Seth started to retort, but he knew it would do no good. He needed to use his energy to find Adrienne, so she could make her own statement against the mob.

  He prayed to God he could get to her in time. There was only one reason her body hadn't been found with the other victims on the bus. Senegal had kidnapped her to make a statement.

  He would kill her, Seth had no doubt. And her death would not be easy.

  Chapter Twelve

  Adrienne had never been so frightened in her life. She'd been blindfolded with a dirty rag and taken off the bus at gunpoint.

  Then she'd been pushed roughly into the back of a van and the two men had climbed in after her.

  She stiffened, clenching her fists, trying to get her feet under her, hindered by the shackles on her ankles. What were the killers planning to do with her? Why hadn't they shot her like they had the others?

  Nausea pricked at the back of her throat. She was afraid she knew what their plans were.

  When a heavy hand came down on her shoulder, she tried to scream, but the hand cuffed her on the chin.

  "Shut up or I'll knock your pretty teeth out." A cell phone was pressed to the side of her head. "Somebody wants to talk to you."

  Adrienne didn't speak.

  "My dear, I'm sorry it had to be this way."

  It was Senegal. Adrienne's whole body went taut with fury and fear. "You."

  "You didn't do what Tony told you to. Didn't he demonstrate what the consequences of your disobedience would be?"

  "He always does," she snapped.

  "I need some information, Adrienne."

  She didn't speak. She tried to push the phone away but a hand grabbed the chain between her wrists and jerked it.

  She stifled a grunt of pain.

  "Are you listening, Adrienne?"

  "Yes," she grated.

  "Who does Seth Lewis work for?"

  She thought about Seth's words. If you don't know, they can't make you tell. She understood now what he'd meant He'd known there was a possibility that Senegal would get to her.

  "I thought he worked for you," she said.

  "I'm disappointed in you. You were always so— malleable. You will regret if you do not tell me who is behind the raids."

  "I don't know."

  "Dues moi! You must tell me!"

  "Jerome. I don't know who Seth is working for. All I can say is, I got screwed, too, just like you." She was shocked at her own words.

  "Then it is too bad you were not better at pillow talk. You will die. No one turns on Jerome Senegal."

  "Go to hell."

  The man standing over her took the cell phone away from her ear and backed up. He was quiet for a moment, his silence striking fear in Adrienne's heart. How was Senegal planning to kill her?

  The man said, "Yes, sir," and Adrienne heard a tiny beep as he turned off the phone.

  Adrienne sent a prayer to heaven that her mother was safe, wherever Seth had taken her.

  "Come on," the man said. "Let's go. We've got our orders."

  The doors of the van slammed shut, and Adrienne was left alone.

  She removed the blindfold, but it didn't make any difference. The inside of the van was dark as pitch and smelled like coffee and rotten fish. The odor, combined with Jerome's ominous words, made her queasy.

  She curled up against the wall of the van and lay there as the men drove with what felt like dangerous speed. After the waves of nausea passed and her eyes had adapted to the dark, Adrienne searched the van's walls and floor for anything she could use as a weapon. But her captors had apparently thought of everything.

  She found dirt and grit and some smelly shrimp shells. The only other item was a filthy blanket piled in one corner.

  Gritting her teeth, determined not to be squeamish, Adrienne shook out the blanket, biting her lips to keep from shrieking as bugs scattered, but there was nothing under the blanket either.

  She tried to sl
ide her hands out of the shackles, but although the metal cuffs felt large and heavy, they were snug enough to prevent her from escaping. Her wrists were chafed and bruised by the time she gave up.

  The van slowed, and Adrienne's heart pounded, but it only turned down what felt like an Interstate exit ramp and onto a bumpy road. It was another half hour before they came to a stop.

  Adrienne steeled herself to die.

  The door opened and sunlight poured in. Two menacing silhouettes immediately blocked the sun.

  Adrienne opened her mouth to scream, hoping to attract attention, and dove at them, but her shackles weighed her down.

  The silhouettes advanced. She swung at them with her shackled hands. Panic sent adrenaline rushing through her system, giving her more strength than she thought she had.

  The larger man grabbed her, putting his beefy hand over her mouth. She bit him. He yelped and backhanded her.

  "Don't just stand there, grab her feet!" he shouted to the other man.

  Adrienne kicked and tried to scream. Her lip stung. She tasted blood.

  Good. She hoped her blood got all over them and all over the van. At least Seth would know what had happened to her.

  Seth. He didn't even know about their baby. The baby she wanted with all her heart.

  She fought with all her strength, but the two men easily overpowered her and pinned her down.

  "Gimme that blanket!" The larger man covered her head with the filthy thing.

  Adrienne couldn't breathe. She gasped and coughed, her throat and chest filling with dust and grime and who knew what else.

  "Let me go!" she croaked, trying to scream, kicking as much as the shackles would let her. "Help!"

  "I told you to shut up—"

  A massive hand closed around her throat, pressing, cutting off her breath.

  "No!" she mouthed.

  Then everything went black.

  Adrienne felt a scrape along her left leg and heard cloth rip. Then her butt hit the floor—hard. Metal clanged against metal, reverberating inside her head like a discordant bell. She coughed and realized she was still wrapped in the smelly blanket, still shackled and still nauseated. Her eyes felt gritty, and she had dirt in her mouth and dust tickling her nostrils.

  But nobody was holding her. She paused for a second, listening, but she didn't hear anything. Were her captors still there? She kicked out and pushed at the suffocating blanket, then rolled, hoping to get to her hands and knees.

  The blanket was yanked off her. Her tortured lungs burned as she gulped huge breaths of air. Her throat hurt. She coughed.

  The bigger man jerked her around until her bottom hit the floor again.

  Eyes tearing, mouth too dry to swallow, Adrienne tossed her head, trying to shake her hair out of her face. She glared at the two men, blinking to clear her vision. She saw her captors' faces clearly for the first time.

  Their bare faces glared back at her. They'd removed their masks. She recognized Marx, one of Jerome's bodyguards, by his distinctive flattened nose.

  He didn't care if she recognized him. The significance of that made her want to cry. They were going to kill her. She'd never get the chance to identify him.

  "You won't get away with this," she croaked. Her voice wasn't working.

  "Shut up," the little guy said.

  He was skinny with a pointed nose, dirty blond hair and a sparse mustache that stuck out like a weasel's whiskers. His mouth was a thin line, and his eyes were hardly more than slits.

  Marx grabbed the chain between her wrist shackles and dragged her across the floor.

  Wincing at the painful ache in her shoulders and wrists, Adrienne forced herself to look at their surroundings. She knew they were on a boat. She'd felt the lazy rocking ever since they'd first set foot on it. She'd been roughly handed down a narrow set of stairs and carried through a doorway or two before being dumped on the floor.

  The room they were in was some kind of storage room. The walls were gray and pipes crisscrossed each other overhead and along the walls.

  Marx dragged her toward the pipes. On the other side of the wall she could hear the rumbling of an idling engine, a big one. They were probably on a big paddle wheel or a ferry.

  The little weaselly guy bent over and opened a duffel bag that Adrienne hadn't noticed before. He took out what looked like a thick black nylon life belt, strapped with duct tape. The tape secured an odd gray bulge to the material.

  He held up the belt and came toward her.

  There were wires hanging from the vest, and on one side was a black plastic box. In the dim light, Adrienne could see numbers on the box. It was a digital clock.

  "Oh my God," Adrienne whispered. "A bomb."

  "Smart girl," Weasel said.

  "Shut up." Marx pushed her down onto the floor and buckled the vest around her waist.

  She struggled and kicked hopelessly, while her brain told her there was no way out.

  "Hold still. You're going to set the damn thing off." Marx grabbed the shackle chain and jerked her hands over her head. Her knees bent forcibly because of the chains.

  Adrienne cried out at the pain in her wrists and ankles. "Good," she gasped. "I'll take you with me."

  "Shut up."

  "Marx." Weasel's voice was shaky. "Can she really set it off?" He took a step backward.

  "Shut up and hand me that piece of cord."

  Marx ran the cord through the chain at her wrists and tied it to a pipe directly over her head.

  "Please don't do this," she begged them. "I'm pregnant. You're going to kill a helpless unborn child. I know you're not that coldhearted."

  Weasel's brows raised and he looked at Marx. Adri-enne felt a tiny surge of hope.

  But Marx ignored her. He dropped to his haunches and reached for the black box at her waist. She tried to kick but the chains were drawn too tight. The best she could do was an ineffectual thrust with her knee.

  "Marx, you know me I brought you those lemon tarts."

  Weasel giggled. "Lemon tarts?"

  "Shut up!"

  Adrienne held Marx's eye. "Why are you doing this?"

  "Orders." Marx bent over, fooling with the clock.

  "I mean why? Why now, after all this time? And why on a boat?"

  "You got too close to Lewis. And Jerome knows Lewis is up to his neck in all the raids and stuff. He wants Lewis to suffer, so he's killing you."

  It made sense, knowing Jerome. Seth's father stole Jerome's wife away. For a man like Jerome, having his wife run off with the lowly gardener was an embarrassment he'd never get over.

  "I suppose knowing I'm pregnant will just be a bonus for him. Two for the price of one?" Her voice broke.

  Marx ducked his head, a frown on his battered face. "Look Mrs. DeBlanc. I've got two kids myself. I don't get to see them much. My wife left me. But—I'm sorry about the baby."

  Adrienne's breath caught in a sob. "Don't do it. Marx, please. Let me go. I can pay you. A lot. Name your price. Just don't murder my baby."

  "You know Jerome. He'd kill me." Marx sounded truly regretful.

  "Yeah," the weaselly guy said. "Besides, we get paid just fine."

  Could she sway Marx if she kept him talking? "Why here? This is a boat, isn't it?"

  "Senegal figures to make a statement. The police are having some kind of party here tonight." Marx pressed a couple of buttons on the clock. It was just like in the movies. Adrienne's pulse pounded in her strained wrists as she listened to the little beeps the box made as Marx set the timer.

  "Marx," Weasel interjected. "We gotta get outta here. It's getting late."

  "Marx, think of your wife, your children. What if someone were trying to kill them?"

  Marx stood up, running colored wires up her arm and around her left wrist. Then he dropped them down behind her.

  "I got my orders. It's four o'clock. The timer's set to go off in exactly four hours."

  "What're you—gonna tell her the whole plan? Don't forget the gag." Weasel pull
ed two pieces of cloth out of his pocket.

  Marx didn't look at Adrienne. "You do it."

  "Open your mouth," Weasel ordered Adrienne.

  She ignored him. "Marx. You're not a killer—"

  "That shows what you know," Weasel snapped as he grabbed her hair and stuffed the cloth in her mouth. Before she could even take a breath or try to spit it out, he tied the second cloth like a gag, pushing the rag deeper into her mouth.

  She gasped, trying to breathe. Marx took something out of his pocket and attached the wires to it, then he pressed it into the lump on the back of the belt.

  "Don't move, Mrs. DeBlanc. There's a pressure sensor in the belt. If you try to get it off, it'll set off the blasting cap."

  Weasel giggled. "Yeah. Then boom!"

  Adrienne's heart pounded like a jackhammer as the two men disappeared, leaving her alone with her tiny unborn baby and a ticking bomb.

  Back at confidential headquarters, Seth paced while Burke, Harrison and Jones listened to Police Chief Courville's report on speakerphone.

  "There was too much blood on the bus to say with any certainty that we've accounted for every person. So there's still a possibility that Adrienne DeBlanc's blood will be identified."

  Seth shook his head. "If Senegal had killed her, he'd have left her at the scene. He likes dramatic gestures. Remember, he sponsored a citywide charity auction just to get a few minutes alone with D. A. Primeaux. And he hired one of the world's most famous magicians to make his daughter's new car appear in his backyard."

  Burke sent Seth a glance. Seth clamped his jaw and continued pacing. All this rehashing of everything was useless. He needed something to go on. Senegal was planning to use Adrienne. Seth just had to figure out how.

  "Arsenault has lawyered up, so we won't get much more out of him unless we plan to offer him a deal," Courville continued. "I'm waiting to hear from D.A. Primeaux about that. I'll have my chief of detectives, Andrew Monseur, available if you need anything, Conrad," Courville said, "but the annual Police Honors Dinner is tonight, on board The Courtesan, and many of my top management, as well as those being honored, will be there."

  "Thanks, Chief," Burke said. "We appreciate the information." Courville hung up.