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her captor sprayed her in the face with something that stung on contact.
Pepper spray, she realized with shock, gagging as she tried to breathe. Her eyes slammed shut, burning as if on fire, and when she tried to scream, her voice came out in a tortured croak. She tried to remember the evasion methods she’d learned during her Cooper Security orientation training, but the pain in her eyes and her lungs overwhelmed her so that it was all she could do to draw her next breath.
A second captor grabbed her feet and lifted, turning her sideways and sending the world around her spinning off its axis. Blinded, gasping for air and disoriented, she landed on something solid and clawed for a foothold before realizing she was lying on her side rather than standing. She heard a solid thud of something closing, and what little light had been able to seep through her streaming eyes disappeared, plunging her into utter darkness.
The smell of pepper spray remained strong, and the skin around her face burned. She needed water, something to rinse off the residue of the spray remaining on her skin and around her eyes, but when she tried to move, she found herself confined.
She was in some sort of box. Feeling around the tiny confines of her cage, she felt the nubby texture of hard vinyl—like a case, similar to the trumpet case that had sat on the pew next to the musician in the sanctuary. But she was too large to fit into any sort of musical-instrument case. It had to be something else.
A sudden shift of position sent her sliding upside down. She put out her hands to keep her head from hitting the side of the box.
She was being moved.
* * *
A SUDDEN RUSH OF MOVEMENT across the church parking lot caught Jesse’s eye. He focused his binoculars on several men racing toward the side entrance.
He dialed Evie’s number. It rang three times before someone answered. “Hello?”
Not Evie, he realized with dismay. “Rita?”
There was a long pause. “Jesse?”
“I was calling Evie.”
“She’s not in here.”
Damn. He needed to know what was going on, but he could hardly ask Rita. She’d know he was there watching the church, which would make him look like a stalker. He compromised. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Rita sounded unexpectedly vulnerable. “I’m in the bloody bride’s room at the church, trying to prepare for the most important day of my life, and there’s an intruder supposedly prowling around the church. Now the bodyguards Daddy hired to cover the wedding have converged on the room, and I don’t even have my hair done yet. The wedding is only two hours away.”
Jesse frowned. An intruder?
He picked up his binoculars and scanned the area, looking for the unexpected. A few more people had arrived while he watched, bridesmaids and groomsmen either dressed for the wedding already or carrying their clothes. Parked near the sanctuary was a white panel truck with a black logo that read Audiovisual Assets—someone filming the wedding? Probably.
As he was about to look away from the truck, a couple of men came out of a side entrance carrying a large black, hard case. Frowning, he focused the binoculars on the case, which was large enough to hold a couple of oversize audio speakers. But that made no sense. Why would they be returning the speakers to the truck when the wedding hadn’t happened yet?
Increasing the zoom as the men shoved the case into the truck, he spotted a scrap of white silk peeking through the narrow space between the case and its hinged cover. His internal radar pinged loudly.
“Jesse?” Rita’s voice buzzed in his ear.
“What was Evie wearing the last time you saw her?” he asked.
“A slip, I think. Her dress is still hanging in here on a hook.” Rita paused. “My robe is missing—she may have borrowed it to go take a look at the sanctuary. She said she wanted to take a peek before the ceremony.”
That scrap of silk he saw might have been from a robe, Jesse realized, alarms sounding like a Klaxon in his brain. “I’ve got to go. If you see Evie, have her call me.” He hung up the phone and started the car, pulling out of the parking slot and easing to the edge of the road.
The truck was on the move as well, rolling slowly toward the exit drive of the church parking lot. It paused to let passing traffic go by, then pulled onto the road, crossing in front of Jesse.
He looked at the driver. Didn’t recognize him, but there was something about the man that rang all of Jesse’s warning bells.
He looked like a mercenary, he realized. Military haircut, hardened expression, cold, focused eyes. There was a second man in the passenger seat of the truck cab, although Jesse didn’t get a good look at him.
He pulled out his phone and called Isabel. “I’m on the move.” He explained his hunch tersely. “Rita said someone tipped off the guards. It could be a decoy.”
“And you think someone’s kidnapped Evie?”
“I hope to hell not.” He wanted to believe that any second now Evie would call him on the phone and make him feel like an idiot. A relieved idiot. But he couldn’t risk staying put. “I need you to cover the church until I get back.”
“Do you want anyone else to back you up?”
“No time for that. Just cover the church in case I’m wrong.”
“On my way,” Isabel said.
Jesse pulled onto the road, keeping a careful distance from the truck. If the driver and his comrade were indeed mercenaries, they’d know how to spot a tail. So he had to be better at tailing than they were at spotting.
He glanced at his cell phone, willing it to ring. He’d love nothing more than to be wrong about his hunch.
But the phone remained stubbornly silent.
* * *
T HE RUSH OF SECURITY toward the bride’s room must have been part of a diversion, Evie thought, pushing hard against the confines of her makeshift coffin. Her eyes still burned, and she was breathing with a distinct wheeze, but enough of the pain had subsided for her to shove it aside and concentrate on the bigger problem.
The box was almost as wide as it was long, which made moving around inside easier than it might have been, but it wasn’t quite long enough for her to straighten out completely. If she had to stay in this position much longer, her limbs would start to cramp up.
The sensation of movement and the engine noise rumbling in her ears confirmed she was on the move. Probably in the back of a truck. So her kidnappers didn’t want her dead.
At least, not yet.
SSU, she thought. Has to be SSU. Since joining Cooper Security a few months earlier, she’d learned a lot about the former Special Services Unit of MacLear Security. For over a year, Jesse and the rest of the Coopers had been involved in several run-ins with the ruthless group of guns for hire who’d survived to reunite after MacLear had collapsed under the weight of scandal. Evie wasn’t sure what they called themselves now, but thanks to the Coopers, she did know their activities were funded by a limited-liability company called AfterAssets.
And she knew they were after her father’s secrets. They must be planning to use her as leverage against her father.
Oh, Jesse, she thought. You were right. They did crash the wedding.
She had to find a way out. But from the inside of a box, there wasn’t a lot she could do to free herself. The borrowed robe confined her movements, especially with a piece of the hem stuck between the hinged pieces of the case. She tried tugging it free but it was firmly wedged, so she wriggled out of the robe, giving herself more mobility.
Think, Evie. What does the box look like on the outside?
It had to have latches, didn’t it? She could see