Taken by the Highest Bidder

“No! I’m not afraid of anything.”

It was true. Just last summer Gabby had leaped off the high dive at a local swimming pool—a diving board so high that most nine-and ten-year-old girls avoided it—but Gabby had loved it. Gabby said when she grew up she wanted to be an astronaut, or a fireman, as long as she could go fast and jump out of tall buildings.

Sam had never understood where Gabby got her thrill-seeking personality from, but now it was beginning to make sense.

Sam looked at Cristiano, hesitated. “You don’t mind if she goes, do you?”

“Not if you’re comfortable,” he answered evenly. “And I can give Mrs. Bishop my mobile number. That way she can call the moment Gabriela gets tired or the girls stop having fun.”

Sam nodded gratefully. “Good idea. Then we can just run down and pick her up.”

“Or I can bring her back.”

While Mrs. Bishop and Cristiano exchanged phone numbers, Sam went to locate Gabby’s coat, and then using her fingers, did her best to comb Gabby’s hair smooth before pulling it into a long ponytail. “Be good,” Sam whispered into the little girl’s ear, walking her from the primitive bathroom back to the cottage door. “Don’t cause any trouble.”

Gabby flashed an impish smile. “I never do!”

And it crossed Sam’s mind, as Mrs. Bishop trundled a beaming Gabriela toward the car, that nothing must dim Gabriela’s quick smile and bright eyes. Gabriela mustn’t ever grow up quickly. She should remain a child as long as she was a child. Sam was only six when her own parents died and life had never been the same. Everyone at the Rookery had tried to step in, patch things together, but mothers and fathers were never replaced. And Sam’s parents, although working class, had been solid and loving. Dependable.

And that’s what Sam tried to be for Gabby. Solid, loving. Dependable.

As Mrs. Bishop shut her own door, she rolled down the window and leaned out. “Sam I nearly forgot. I have the key to the Rookery. Why don’t you stay there? It has a generator in back, and a proper kitchen with working appliances.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sam said, glancing at the cottage behind her. It was small, and rustic, but it was also quaint and cozy in a way the old rambling Rookery would never be.

“Take the key anyway.” Mrs. Bishop extended her hand, held a key ring out to her. “Just return it to me when you leave.”

Sam was conscious of Cristiano standing behind her as she stood in the driveway watching Mrs. Bishop slowly make her way down the lane, her small blue car bouncing in the potholes just like the taxi did last night. The lane was a mess, the sides of the road a jungle of weeds and blackberry thorns, so different from how Sam remembered it as a child.

“You don’t let her out of your sight very much, do you?” Cristiano said, his voice a deep rumble.

Sam shivered at the bite of cold air. It was chillier this morning than it had been last night when they arrived. “No.” Reluctantly she turned to face him, her hands burrowing in her coat pockets, fingers stiff. “I worry about her when she’s gone.”

“Why?”

“Things have happened in the past,” she said evasively, unwilling to go into detail about the kidnapping attempt several years ago that had put Sam in the hospital and given Gabby nightmares for months. It had been three years since the kidnapping attempt—someone had obviously thought Baron van Bergen had more money than he did—but the terror was still very real to Sam.

She still didn’t know who had targeted Gabriela, and the Monaco police had never come to any conclusions. In the end they concluded it was a random attack. They’d told Johann how lucky it was that Sam was there, and that she fought as hard as she did to defend Gabriela, otherwise the perpetrator would have succeeded.

But Sam didn’t feel lucky. The police’s conclusions did little to comfort Sam, and until the case was solved, Sam believed that Gabby remained a target.

“What things?” Cristiano asked.

Sam shrugged uncomfortably. She didn’t like talking about bad things, didn’t want to dwell on that which was frightening or out of her control. Funny, she thought, how much she didn’t let herself think about, or feel. “Something happened years ago that’s made me extra protective toward Gabby. Nothing’s happened since, but I still worry.”