The flash drive he'd lied about concealing. Which was currently in Dante's possession. As much as she doubted Dante after all she had learned about him, what she felt for Ben now was even stronger. She met his disturbingly lifeless gaze and shook her head.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Wrong answer, Doc."
Tess wasn't at all prepared for the fist that shot out at her and connected with the side of her head. She cried out, falling hard against the seat and cradling the pain that was exploding in her face.
"Maybe you'll think more clearly at the clinic," Ben said. At his indication, the driver punched the gas and the car sped up the street. Tess's vision swam as they made the drive from the North End to her clinic in East Boston. Ben's van was parked around back, right next to Nora's vintage Beetle.
"Oh, God," Tess murmured, heartsick to see her assistant's car. "What have you done to her, Ben? Tell me you haven't hurt Nora--"
"Come along, Doc," he said, ignoring her question as he opened the door beside him and motioned to her with the knife to get moving.
Tess climbed out as directed, followed by Ben and the two goons who accompanied him. They brought her in through the back of the clinic, through the storeroom and into the empty kennel area. Ben shoved her forward, into the clinic's lobby. The place was trashed, file cabinets tossed over and emptied onto the floor, furniture smashed, chemicals and pharmaceuticals spilled all over the floor. The destruction was total, but it wasn't until Tess saw Nora that her breath caught on a sob.
She was lying on the floor behind the reception station, her head coming up as Tess was brought near. They had tied her hands and feet with a telephone cord and gagged her mouth with a length of gauze from the medical supplies. Nora was crying, her face ashen, her eyes puffed and red from what looked to have been hours of torment. But she was alive, and that alone kept Tess from losing it completely.
"Oh, Nora," she said brokenly. "I'm so sorry. I'll get you out of this, I promise."
Beside her, Ben chuckled. "I'm glad to hear you say that, Doc. Because little Nora's fate depends solely on you now."
"What? What do you mean?"
"You're going to help us find that flash drive, or you're going to watch as I slit the bitch's throat in front of you."
Behind the gag in her mouth, Nora screamed. She started struggling wildly against her bonds, all in vain. One of Ben's big companions went over and hauled her to her feet, holding Nora in a bruising grip. He dragged her closer, until no more than a couple of feet separated the women. Nora pleaded with her eyes, sheer panic making her tremble like a leaf in her captor's hard grasp.
"Let her go, Ben. Please."
"Hand over the flash drive, and I will let her go, Tess."
Nora moaned, the sound imploring, desperate. Tess knew real terror then, a bone-deep dread that only bore further into her as she looked into her friend's eyes and realized that Ben and these other men were deadly serious. They were going to kill Nora--probably Tess as well--if she didn't give them what they wanted. And she couldn't give it to them, because she didn't have it.
"Ben, please. Let Nora go and use me instead. I'm the one who took the flash drive, not her. She's not involved in this--"
"Tell me where you put the drive, and maybe I'll let her go, how's that, Doc? Fair enough for you?"
"I don't have it," she murmured. "I took it out of the examination table where you hid it, but I don't have it anymore."
He fixed that unfeeling stare on her, a muscle ticking in his jaw. "What did you do with it?" "Let her go," Tess hedged. "Let her go, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
Ben's mouth lifted at the corner. He eyed the knife he held, toying with the razor edge of the blade. Then, in a flash of motion, he pivoted around and stuck Nora in the stomach with it.
"No!" Tess screamed. "Oh, God--no!"
Ben swung back to her, cool as could be. "That's just a gut wound, Doc. She can survive that if she gets help soon enough, but you'd better start talking fast."
Tess's knees buckled beneath her. Nora was bleeding badly, her eyes rolling back in her head from shock. "Goddamn you, Ben. I hate you."
"And I no longer care what you feel about me, Tess. All I care about is getting that flash drive back. So. Where the fuck is it?"
"I gave it to someone."
"Who?"
"Dante."
That caused a spark of animosity to flicker in Ben's dull gaze. "You mean that guy--the one you're screwing? Do you have any idea what you've done? Any idea what he is?"