A Matter of Circumstance by M J Marlow (top 20 books to read txt) 📕

filled her ears. “Who is this bastard?” “Such language, Mademoiselle,” her kidnapper laughed and removed the phone. He put the gag back in her mouth. “Monsieur Beauclerc,” the man said then as she heard him get up and move away, “you have been assured that your daughter is alive. Whether she continues to remain so is entirely up to you. You have been told what you must do.” His steps receded and Victoria did not hear the rest of the conversation. Did this man actually think her father was going to take this lying down? He had to be insane, and that made him dangerous. She was hungry and thirsty and her body was stiff from being bound. How long had she been unconscious? Was anyone looking for her? Hawk was supposed to come over on Saturday for dinner with Uncle William and herself. He had said he had something he needed to discuss with them both. She felt the tears pricking at her eyes and chided herself for her weakness. She was a trained operative for God’s sake; a little kidnapping shouldn’t terrify her. “You must be thirsty, ma petite,” her captor said as he came back. He removed the gag and held something to her mouth. A bottle of water with a squirt top she guessed as something flooded into her mouth. Water, yes. But something more than water she realized too late as she drank it and began to feel light-headed. “Rest now, Victoria. In two days we will know if your Papa has done as he was told.” His hand stroked her cheek and she flinched away from his touch. “If yes, we will leave you here alive for someone to find and be on our way. If not, you will die here.” He emptied the bottle for her and watched as she collapsed from the sedative. Such a beautiful young woman, he thought as he remained there a few more moments, running his hand along her body slowly. What a waste it would be if he had to destroy her. He could use a woman of her talents and connections. He put the gag back in her mouth and left the storage unit. He locked the door and stood watching the planes over at the airfield next door to the storage lot. “There is something about that man that bothers me,” the woman who ran the business said as she caught sight of him from the kitchen window of the apartment above the office. “You don’t like him because he’s foreign, Mom,” her teenaged daughter said as she joined her at the window. “I think he’s a hunk.” She turned away and saw the news come on. “There’s more about that kidnapped woman; the one engaged to that FBI agent, Mom.” They sat down and watched the news report, commiserating with the woman’s plight and completely oblivious to the fact that Victoria Ryan was being held captive in one of their own storage units. A buzzer went off and the woman went downstairs to deal with a customer and the teenager went back to her homework. Hawk and Martin remained at the Sheriff’s Office helping to field calls. They were ready to scream for all the crank calls and false leads by the time Vincent called. His news was not good. Hawk listened without comment and told him to keep on the father. He was convinced the kidnapping was connected to Victoria’s father now. “The man whose murder she witnessed,” Hawk said as he hung up and looked over at Martin, “was named Fernand Cabrera. Low level thug who worked for her father before he was fired.” He quieted a moment. “They’re thinking he was going to kidnap Victoria as revenge. Vincent has officers out rounding up his known associates.” He watched the sun starting to set and prayed that Victoria was still alive. “She’s been missing for 30 hours now, Martin.” “She’s coming back, Hawk,” Martin stated firmly. “You have to hang on to that. She has a question to answer for you, remember?” He saw how beat his friend was. “Knock off an hour or two and get yourself something to eat, Hawk. You look beat.” He started to argue. “She’s going to need you strong.” Hawk nodded and went outside. A rusted out pickup truck pulled up in front of him and he saw his nephew and friends piling out. Adam helped Juliana out of the back and they came to him. “We thought you could use some help with phones and stuff,” Adam said as he met his uncle’s eyes. “She’s tough, Hawk,” Juliana added as she laid her hand on his arm. “Victoria is going to get out of this!” She found herself being hugged and she let him hold her. “I’ll be inside.” “I was just going to get something to eat,” Hawk told his nephew. “I’ll be back in twenty.” Adam nodded and watched his uncle cross the road to the diner. He knew about the impending proposal and he prayed that Victoria would be alive for his uncle to ask. She had to be, he told himself. He wanted her for an aunt. He wanted nieces and nephews around to teach things to. “You hang in there, Victoria,” he said softly into the night sky as he turned to go into the station. “You owe me lots of relatives!” Victoria woke up and forgot for a moment what her situation was. She struggled to sit up and froze as she heard a lock being opened and the sound of something metal being lifted. Was she in a storage unit? She waited a few minutes and no one came towards her. She heard movement nearby and she got the cuffs around her body so they were in front of her body. She untied her ankles and pulled herself up on a stack of boxes. They fell and she screamed as the boxes fell over on top of her. Please God, she prayed as she tried to get out from under the heavy boxes, don’t let me die like this. “Hey Mister,” she heard a man saying. “Something in your unit wants out.” “I’m working on a robotics project in there,” a familiar voice said. “It must have switched on early. Sorry if it disturbed you.” Victoria quit moving, knowing that the man would kill the person if she didn’t. She listened as they talked for a few more minutes and then the door was closed, the lock engaged and a car pulled away. The door to her prison was opened and she heard him curse. “Ma petite,” he said softly as he got the boxes off of her. “You could have hurt yourself trying a stunt like that!” She heard him moving around and a minute later he had grabbed and taped her ankles and she felt him pulling something up over her feet and legs. “We have to move. My contacts tell me your father’s hunters are closing in.” “Let me go now,” Victoria croaked past her parched lips, “and you just might live.” “You have a sense of humor, ma belle,” the man laughed. He held the bottle to her lips. “Something to drink and a few more hours of oblivion.” She spat the water in his face and he slapped her. “I am trying to be gentle with you, Victoria. There was no need for you to do such a thing!” He forced the water into her and then closed the sack over her head. He dragged her out to the rented van and dumped her in the back. Then he nodded to the two men in front as he climbed in after locking the door. He did not notice that he did not fully engage the lock or that Victoria had been bleeding from where she had been struggling to undo the cuffs on her wrists and the damage done by the boxes falling on top of her. There were several spots on the storage unit floor and on some of the boxes. Three hours after they drove away, the manager called the Sheriff’s Office with the news that someone had been hurt in one of her units. There was blood. “It’s Victoria’s,” Martin told Hawk when he called in from the sight two hours later. “Not a lot. It looks like she was trying to untie herself and some boxes fell on her and she’s bleeding from that. There is also a pool of water nearby. What?” There was silence for a moment. “The water has a trace amount of a sedative in it, Hawk.” “Anyone see anything?” “The daughter of the manager,” Martin reported, “saw the man who had rented the unit dumping a big canvas sack into the back of a dark blue van as she left for school this morning.” “How are you getting lab results at the sight, Martin?” Hawk asked him. “Get this,” Martin said, excitement in his tone. “Interpol arrived about an hour before I did. Beauclerc asked them to find his daughter for him in exchange for all the information he has compiled against his business associates for the past twenty years.” Hawk could almost imagine his expression. “I guess kidnapping was one straw too many.” Victoria moaned as she was dropped onto a hard surface. Obviously gentle was no longer the operative word where her handling was concerned. She ached all over from being under those boxes and she knew she had been injured. She was pulled out of the sack and the gag was removed. She felt the phone being held to her ear. “You will tell your Papa to call off his hunters now or you will be dead,” the man ordered her. “You’re going to kill me anyway,” Victoria replied. “And when you do, there is nowhere you can run that his hunters won’t find you!” He slapped her and she laughed at him, delirious from hunger. “I don’t care, don’t you get it? Kill me already.” “Ma fille!” her father’s voice exclaimed over the phone. “You must not taunt them so. I want you back alive.” She could hear the worry in his voice and she cried then. “Tell them I will do whatever they ask if they will just release you.” “No, Papa,” Victoria protested. “You can’t let them have what they want.” The phone was pulled away from her and the gag put back. “You are a very loving parent, Beauclerc,” the man laughed as he watched her cry. “Your daughter is a lucky young woman.” He paused a few moments. “You were given the instructions and the account number. Because of your daughter’s bad behavior you will add another ten million to the original amount and lose four hours. The deadline is now five o’clock.” He ran his hand along her arm and watched as she scrambled away from him, shaking. “Once the transfer is confirmed, your lovely child will be released.” He laughed. “Why should I not keep our bargain? I am getting a lot of money. As long as you do not send anyone after me once you have your child back, I won’t have any reason to go after her again, will I?” He hung up the phone and helped her sit up as she tried to get away from him. Once she realized he was not attacking her she fell silent. He wished he could see those beautiful eyes of hers. They were like sapphires filled with lightning when she was angry and he could tell from her posture that she was very, very angry right now. “Would you care for something to eat, ma belle?” he asked as he stroked her cheek. She pulled away from him. “You must be very hungry by now. It has been nearly forty-two hours since you last ate. Chicken, was it not, prepared by the loving hands of Mrs. Botley?” She stiffened and he laughed. “Oh yes,