Tempest - Kris Michaels Page 0,12

the office door, and closed it. The door rested in the jamb not an inch from her nose. The metallic click of the electronic lock engaging was the last thing she'd heard from Regina's side of the door for over two hours.

Of course, her mother's outrage sent shivers of apprehension through her and the rest of the office workers. She’d assumed the results from her message sent the day before to be the motivation for the woman's rant. Could they link her to the man's escape? Was there a way to connect the message she’d typed and then deleted from the draft message box to her?

That day, she'd been terrified of discovery. Now, years later, her greatest fear was becoming her mother—a creature immune to simple human kindnesses. How long until she decided the end justified any means?

She closed her eyes and calmed herself. If Regina had taught her anything, she'd taught her to live with the decisions she made. The lesson her mother provided so well almost three years ago had ripped away the last vestiges of doubt as to Regina's character. She'd thought of a hundred ways to report her mother and had even tried to contact the police in New York. The police had laughed at her. She’d had no idea where the man was currently being held. She’d had the address to which he would be taken, but the man had made her swear she wouldn't tell anyone the address unless someone made contact via the dead drop. If his captors knew the address had been compromised, they'd change it, and he'd lose any chance of rescue.

So, with the information she could release, she’d contacted the police and of course Regina had denied everything, shrouding her concerns in doubt and ridicule. Her punishment for trying to report the man being held had been immediate. She'd been shunned for over a year. Her mother's intense anger at her attempt to help the man had resulted in a tightly fisted net of people inserted into her life to watch her and report back to Regina. The illusion of freedom was there, but from the moment she'd called the police in New York, she’d had zero freedom. She was, for a lack of a better term, hostage to her mother's decrees.

As she stared at the storm, she contemplated once again making the move to aid someone, but this time the someone she would assist would be herself. Lord knew she'd seen enough to understand her mother's ethics were... nonexistent. She would have to release the irrefutable proof she had acquired. But to whom and how? And the cost... Would it be worth it? No, when she acted this time, she would find a way to get the information to someone with a chance to succeed with any action taken. Yet the question still remained, how could she stop Regina? Her silent meditation and the storm outside raged on as she stared into the swirling rain.

Chapter 4

The packed, wet sand held him as he ran along the surf. The mansions to his left adjacent to Florida's A1A highway claimed the ocean view. His stride didn't lessen as he approached the residence he'd been observing for the last week. The white tiled roof gleamed under the south Florida sun. Minimalistic landscaping and stark white block walls rose three stories above the ocean front beach in a monolithic abomination of modern architecture. This was the address she'd recited to him moments before she’d left his cell.

Imaginary ants crawled under his skin as he jogged past the mansion. The woman who had been, at a minimum, aware of his captivity, owned the house, and the daughter who’d freed him resided in those confines. His careful pace faltered as memories threatened to escape the fenced off place in his mind where he'd forced them to live. Carefully he counted his strides and glanced toward the mansion. The expanses of glass placed him in full view of the occupants, but there was no way Pilar would recognize him now.

He ran on as his mind worked on a thousand different points of information and filtered through obvious concerns. Would she trust him? Did she still want to escape? If she did, how fit was she? Would she be able to run on the beach far and fast enough? If not, what was his secondary exit route? Tertiary? What happened if she wasn't in the residence? Did he risk making contact again? The draft he'd placed in