Driven by Fire (Fire 2)

It was easier than she had thought. She gave her every name in the family, from their mother to their brothers to their second cousin twice removed, with alternative spellings and substituting numbers for letters. Each one took up a goodly portion of time, and she could see Soledad grow more and more frustrated. “This is no good—your brother isn’t as sentimental as you. He cares nothing about family. What else would he have used?”

She went on through his college years at Tulane—the name of his fraternity, each of his friends, first name and last, numbers and letters. The sun was beginning to set, and she hadn’t allowed Soledad to get anywhere near the encryption, and while her voice was raw and her stomach empty, she’d lost the ability to worry about it. She just had to keep coming up with plausible choices for as long as possible, long enough for Ryder to rescue her. Assuming Soledad was right and he would risk his life for her.

No, he wouldn’t risk his life for her, but he would for the smartphone and the information it contained. She was collateral damage—he’d save her if he could, but not at the expense of getting what he wanted.

“Enough!” Soledad snapped, rising from her chair. The sun was setting over the valley beyond the large picture windows, sending shadows through the room, and Soledad’s innocent beauty was looking jaded and sinister. “You are proving useless. If I didn’t believe you were lying, I would shoot you in the head this minute.” She came up to her, her small body vibrating with rage. “Perhaps I should give you some incentive.”

“Perhaps you should give me a glass of water,” Jenny shot back.

It was a mistake. Soledad’s eyes narrowed. “Manolo, bring me that baseball bat you play with.”

The words were enough to send terror through Jenny’s insides. The baseball bat appeared, and though it looked incongruous in Soledad’s small hands, it didn’t look any the less lethal. The woman swung it experimentally, far too close to Jenny’s head. Jenny didn’t move.

“You realize if you hurt me too badly I won’t be able to think because of the pain,” she said in a deceptively steady voice. “I’m doing the best I can—what would I have to gain by not giving you the right words? I’m trying everything I can think of—our family, our pets, his favorite foods. Sooner or later I’ll hit on the right one—you just need to be patient. If you let me type them in myself you wouldn’t be so frustrated.”

Soledad’s smile was horrifying in its sweet evil. “What would you have to gain? You’re a smart woman—you know your own value to me is getting into the phone. It doesn’t matter if you’re dead when Ryder gets here—he won’t make it as far as this house, and he’ll never know if we’ve already killed you or not.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate Ryder if I were you.”

Soledad swung the baseball bat again, and Jenny could feel the wind whip past her face. “I wouldn’t underestimate me. You can remain stubborn and try to put off telling me the right words to get into the phone, and you can suffer a great deal of pain. Or you can work harder, come up with the right answer, and you’ll have a swift death.”

“Meaning you won’t hand me over to your men.”

“Of course not,” Soledad said, righteously, and Jenny knew she was lying. “If you come up with the answer. Otherwise the men are bored and lonely and there are no women up here. I have to give them something to keep them happy, don’t I?”

“What about the ransom idea? My father would pay a lot of money for my safe return.”

“You already told me he wouldn’t pay a penny. The Guiding Light has decided that hostage taking isn’t worth the trouble—the payoff is small compared to what we can make with the immigrants.”

“Immigrants? Is that what you call them? They’re sex slaves.”

Soledad shrugged. “They’re leaving their country for a new life. And America is the land of opportunity, though they go other places as well. I have sold my body since I was nine years old, and look at me now.”

Jenny stared at her in shock. “You’re victimizing children the same way you were victimized?”

“So tenderhearted. You know nothing of what life is like. And your mewling protests are annoying me. I’m tired of you. I will give you the night to think about how helpful you can be, and if you don’t have the answers in the first hour tomorrow, I will start by breaking your foot and working my way upward.” She slapped the baseball bat in her hands.

“Why don’t you let me take the phone with me and I can work on it tonight?”

“What kind of idiot do you think I am? You would destroy this rather than let me get the information from it. Why do you think I refuse to let you put your hands on it? It will stay right here, and you will come up with the key to unlock it, or you will be very sorry indeed. Have you ever heard the sound it makes when you break a bone with a baseball bat, Miss Parker? It makes a very satisfying crunch before the person starts screaming. I might start with the knee—you’re stronger than I would like, and I want to be sure I get

to smashing your pelvis. Unless you’ve found sudden inspiration.”

Jenny’s dry throat had closed up at Soledad’s dreamy words, and it was hard for her speak. “I’ll figure out the password. I promise.”

Soledad’s lovely mouth curled in a catlike smile. “I know you will, chica.”

She was half dragged, half pushed through the spacious house, her bare feet stumbling on the cold stone floor, until she was thrust into a vacant room. It had the same floor-to-ceiling windows as the living room, and in the gathering darkness she could see the steep ravine beyond the narrow deck. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can escape,” Soledad warned her. “The sliding door is chained shut from the outside, and if you were fool enough to try to break the window, my men are patrolling the grounds. And they are very, very hungry, Miss Parker. They have orders to help themselves if they find you someplace you should not be. Sleep well.”

She shoved her, and Jenny went sprawling, unable to help herself with her arms still bound. A moment later the door was closed and she was left in darkness.

It was a large room, devoid of furniture except for a mattress on the floor, covered with an old blanket. It probably had either fleas or bedbugs, but she couldn’t afford to be too picky. After all, chances were good that tomorrow she’d be dead—what difference would a few bug bites make?

She didn’t bother to get to her feet as she heard the door being locked behind her, plunging the room into dusk-tinged shadows, she simply crawled over to the mattress, ready to collapse.

It was covered with a filthy sheet, and there were blood smears on it. Who had spent the night here before? She didn’t bother to ask where they’d gone—she doubted they’d been rescued by a grateful family. She yanked off the sheet with her bound hands and then collapsed on the mattress, shivering in the air-conditioning. Tomorrow she’d have to come up with something, but one password led to the next layer of encryption, and she had no idea how long she could string Soledad along. She suspected that the woman was looking for an excuse to use that heavy wood baseball bat, and the thought of it cracking her knee filled her with terror. She was going to have to give up something, at least enough to keep Soledad at a distance.

For what? To wait until she heard the gunshots that signaled Ryder’s execution? The thought made her sick to her stomach.