got me, and I’ll make sure it’s out and ready.”
“Good.”
“Although it’s not even ten in the morning. I’m sure the homicidal maniacs are still sleeping from being up and causing mayhem until the wee hours of the morning.”
Walker didn’t even chuckle. “There’s no timeline for bad shit happening.”
“But you always tell me nothing good happens after midnight.”
“Which is true. But that doesn’t mean that assholes can’t be drunk at nine in the morning, or looking for an easy mark to get some cash for the drugs they need to get them through the day.”
“Okay, okay, okay. I get it. I’ll be careful, Walker. Promise.”
“Good.”
“Say hi to your friends for me.”
“I will. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Walker?”
“Yeah?”
He sounded distracted and Gillian knew he needed to go, that he had to get into a meeting. She’d wanted to tell him how much she missed him and how important he was to her, but while he was rushed didn’t seem like the best time. “Have a good day,” she said somewhat lamely.
“You too. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Gillian clicked off the phone connection and sighed. She loved talking to Walker. They never seemed to run out of things to say to each other. But now she needed to concentrate on the other cars around her and finding her way to the right address downtown. With all the one-way streets, she frequently got turned around.
But this time, she was able to figure out where she was going without any issues and she pulled into the parking garage with plenty of time to spare before her appointment. Gillian chose to park at the top of the garage, near the elevator doors. There were fewer cars at the top of the structure, but that was all right with her. Gillian had seen a documentary once on how shoddy architects had designed a parking garage and it had collapsed, trapping and squishing people on the lower levels. It seemed safer to park at the top. Yeah, it was a longer fall down, but at least she’d be on the top of all the debris.
Her friends gave her shit about being so paranoid, but Gillian didn’t care. She’d get the last laugh when she was standing on top of the pile of rubble that used to be a parking garage.
She took the elevator down to the first floor and headed for the caterer.
An hour and a half later, and full of sugar from all the cakes she’d tasted, Gillian headed back to her car. They’d settled on two cakes for the party, one the double chocolate cake Gillian had guessed would be a favorite choice, and a simpler vanilla cake with chocolate frosting for the other.
Gillian was thinking about all the things she still needed to do to finalize everything for the Howards’ anniversary party as she stepped out of the elevator on the top floor of the parking garage—and didn’t see the two men in masks running toward her until it was too late to do anything.
The pepper spray Walker had given her was inside her purse, but even if it had been in her hand, she wouldn’t have had time to do anything other than brace.
One of the men grabbed her around the waist and clamped his hand over her mouth.
Gillian screamed, but the sound barely traveled further than the next car over.
The second man grabbed her legs when she began to kick and fight. They shuffled her over to a white panel van—how cliché—and stuffed her inside when the door was opened.
There were no seats in the back of the van and it was full of all sorts of tools. Gillian had watched enough crime shows to know if the men managed to take her out of the garage, she was as good as dead. They could bring her to the middle of nowhere. Lord knew there were plenty of places in Texas that were totally isolated, even around Austin, that she didn’t have a hope in hell of escaping.
Panicked, she fought as hard as she could. She knew she’d made contact with her kidnappers because there was a lot of grunting and swearing.
“Hold her down!” one man said.
“I’m trying!” the other answered.
“Hit her!” a third voice ordered.
The third voice registered in her consciousness as being female, which was a shock, and for a second, Gillian thought it sounded familiar, but then she couldn’t think about anything other than the pain as a fist landed on her cheekbone.
Momentarily stunned, she stopped fighting. The door slid shut and she heard