Chapter One
The summer storm lit up the night sky in a jagged display
of energy, lightning streaking and fragmenting
between towering thunderheads. Sara Walsh ignored
the storm as best she could, determined not to let it interrupt
her train of thought. The desk lamp as well as the overhead
light were on in her office as she tried to prevent any shadows
from forming. What she was writing was disturbing
enough.
The six-year-old boy had been found Dead.
Writing longhand on a yellow legal pad of paper, she
shaped the twenty-ninth chapter of her mystery novel.
Despite the dark specificity of the scene, the flow of words
never faltered.
The child had died within hours of his abduction. His
family, the Oklahoma law enforcement community, even his
kidnapper, did not realize it. Sara didn't pull back from writing
the scene even though she knew it would leave a bitter
taste of defeat in the mind of the reader. The impact was necessary
for the rest of the book.
She crossed out the last sentence, added a new detail,
then went on with her description of the farmer who had
found the boy.
Thunder cracked directly overhead. Sara flinched. Her
office suite on the thirty-fourth floor put her close enough to
the storm she could hear the air sizzle in the split second
before the boom. She would like to be in the basement parking
garage right now instead of her office.
A glance at the clock on her desk showed it was almost
eight in the evening. The push to finish a story always took
over as she reached the final chapters. This tenth book was
no exception.
This was the most difficult chapter in the book to write.
It was better to get it done in one long sustained effort. Death
always squeezed her heart.
Had her brother been in town, he would have insisted
she wrap it up and come home. Her life was restricted
enough as it was. He refused to let her spend all her time at
the office. He would lean against the doorjamb of her office
and give her that look along with his predictable lecture
telling her all she should be doing: puttering around the
house, cooking, messing with the roses, doing something
other than sitting behind that desk.
She did so enjoy taking advantage of Dave's occasional
absences.
His flight back to Chicago from the FBI academy at
Quantico had been delayed due to the storm front. When he
called her from the airport out East, he cautioned her he
might not be home until eleven.
It wasn't a problem, she assured him, everything was
fine. Code words. Spoken every day. So much a part of their
language now that she spoke them instinctively. "Everything
is fine"-all clear; "I'm fine"-I've got company; "I'm doing
fine"-I'm in danger. She had lived the dance a long time.
The tight security around her life was necessary. It was overpowering,
obnoxious, annoying . and comforting.
Sara turned in the black leather chair to watch the display
of lightning. The skyline of downtown Chicago glimmered
back at her through the rain.
With every book, another fact, another detail, another
intense emotion, broke through from her own past. She
could literally feel the dry dirt under her hand, feel the
oppressive darkness. Reliving what had happened to her
twenty-five years ago was terrifying. Necessary, but terrifying.
She sat lost in thought for several minutes, idly walking
her pen through her fingers. Her adversary was out there
somewhere, still alive, still hunting her. Had he made the
association to Chicago yet? After all these years, she was still
constantly moving, still working to stay one step ahead of the
threat. Her family knew only too well his threat was real.
The man would kill her. Had long ago killed her sister.
The threat didn't get more basic than that. She had to trust
others and ultimately God for her security. There were days
her faith wavered under the intense weight of simply enduring
that stress. She was learning by necessity how to roll with
events, to trust God's ultimate sovereignty.
The notepad beside her was filled with doodled sketches
of faces. One of these days her mind was finally going to stop
blocking the one image she longed to sketch. She knew she
had seen the man. Whatever the consequences of trying to
remember, whatever the cost, it was worth paying in order to
try to bring justice for her and her sister.
She couldn't force the image to appear no matter how
much she longed to do so. She was the only one who still
believed it was possible for her to remember it. The police,
the FBI, the doctors had given up hope years ago.
She fingered a worn photo of her sister Kim that sat by a
white rose on her desk. She didn't care what the others
thought. Until the killer was caught, Sara would never give
up hope.
God was just. She held on to that knowledge and the hope
that the day of justice would eventually arrive. Until it did, she
carried guilt inside that remained wrapped around her heart.
In losing her twin, she had literally lost part of herself.
Turning her attention back to her desk, she debated for a
moment whether or not she wanted to do any more work
tonight. She didn't.
She slipped the pad of paper with her draft of the book
chapter into the folder beside her computer keyboard. When
it had begun to rain, she turned off her computer, not willing
to risk possible damage from a building electrical surge
should lightning hit a transformer or even the building itself.
As she put the folder away, the framed picture on the corner
of her desk caught her attention. Her best friend was getting
married. Sara envied her. She could feel the sense of
rebellion rising again. The need to break free of the security
blanket around her rose and fell with time. Ellen had freedom
and a life. She was getting married to a wonderful man.
Sara longed to one day have that same choice. Without freedom,
it wasn't possible, and that hurt. Her dream was being
sacrificed with every passing day.
She opened her desk drawer, retrieved her purse, then
picked up her briefcase.
Her office had plush forest green carpet and ivory walls.
The furniture, European; the bookcases, mahogany. This was
the office where H. Q. Victor, the internationally known
British author, worked.
She lifted her raincoat from the stand by the door. With
the London Fog coat, she even looked British.
As she stepped into the outer office, the room lights automatically
turned on. They illuminated a massive receptionist
area where the walls displayed children's books-thirty-five
of them-by Sara J. Walsh. Sara reached back and turned off
the interior office lights.
There was a second office twenty feet away, where the
name Sara Walsh had been stenciled in gold on the nameplate.
She wrote the children's books there, illustrated them,
had fun. The office behind her had no nameplate. When she
locked the suite door, an electronic beam triggered behind
her, securing the office.
Her suite was in the east tower of the business complex.
Rising forty-five stories, the two recently built towers added
to the already impressive downtown skyline. Sara liked the
modern building and the shopping available on the ground
floor. She disliked the elevator ride for she didn't like closed
spaces, but she considered the view worth the price.
The elevator that responded tonight came from two
floors below. There were two connecting walkways between
the east and west towers, one on the sixth floor and another
in the lobby. She chose the sixth floor concourse tonight,
walking through it to the west tower with a confident but fast
pace.
She was alone in the wide corridor. Travis sometimes
accompanied her, but she had waved off his company
tonight and told him to go get dinner. If she needed him, she
would page him.
The click of her heels echoed off the marble floor. There
was parking under each tower, but if she parked under the
tower where she worked, she would be forced to pull out
onto a one-way street no matter which exit she took. It was
a pattern someone could observe and predict. Changing her
route and time of day across one of the two corridors was a
better compromise. Hopefully she could see any danger
coming.
Adam Black dropped the pen he held onto the white legal
pad and got up to walk over to the window, watching the
lightning storm flare around the building. He felt like that
inside. Storming, churning.
He had lost more than his dad-he had lost his confidant,
his best friend. Trying to cope with the grief by drowning
himself in work was only adding to the turmoil.
The passage in Mark chapter 4 of the storm-tossed sea
and Jesus asleep in the boat crossed his mind and drew a
smile. What had Jesus said? "Why are you afraid? Have you
still no faith?" Appropriate for tonight.
He rubbed the back of his neck. His current commercial
contracts expired in three months. A feeding frenzy was
forming-which ones would he be willing to renew? Which
new ones would he consider? What kind of money would it
cost for people to get use of his name and image?
The tentative dollar figures being passed by his brother-in-law
Jordan were astronomical.
The stack of proposals had been winnowed out, but the
remaining pile still threatened to slide onto the floor.
All he needed to do was make a decision.
God, what should I do?
The decisions he made would set his schedule for the
next five years of his life. If he said yes, he was by default saying
no to something else. Was it that he didn't want to make
a decision or that he didn't want to be tied down?
It was hard to define what he wanted to accomplish anymore.
He was restless. He had been doing basically the same
thing for three years: keeping his image in the public eye and
building his business. It had become routine. He hated routine.
His dad would have laughed and told him that when the
work stopped being fun, it was time to find a new line of
work.
They'd had eight days together between the first heart
attack and his death. Eight good days despite the pain-Adam
sitting at his dad's hospital bedside and talking about
everything under the sun. They had both known that time
was short.
"I'll be walking in glory soon, son," his dad would quip
as they ended each evening, never knowing if it would be
their last visit. And Adam would squeeze his hand and reply,
"When you get there, you can just save me a seat."
"I'll save two," his dad would reply with a twinkle in his
eye that would make Adam laugh.
Adam glanced at the red folder he had placed between
the picture of his father and the glass-encased football on the
credenza. No, he wasn't reading the list in the folder again
tonight. He already knew it by heart.
It was time to go home. Time to feed his dog, if not himself.
* * *
Sara decided to take the elevator down to the west tower
parking garage rather than walk the six flights. She could grit
her teeth for a few flights to save time. She pushed the button
to go down and watched the four elevators to see which
would respond first. The one to her left, coming down from
the tenth floor.
When it stopped she reached inside and pushed the
garage-floor parking button but didn't step inside. Tonight
she would take the second elevator.
It came down from the twenty-fifth floor.
Sara shifted her raincoat over her arm and moved her
briefcase to her other hand. The elevator stopped and the
doors slid open.
A man was in the elevator.
She froze.
He was leaning against the back of the elevator, looking
as if he had put in a long day at work, a briefcase in one hand
and a sports magazine in the other, his blue eyes gazing back
at her. She saw a brief look of admiration in his eyes.
Get in and take a risk; step back and take a risk.
She knew him. His face was as familiar as any sports figure
in the country, even if he'd been out of the game of football
for three years. His commercial endorsements and
charity work had continued without pause.
Adam Black worked in this building? This was a nightmare
come true. The last thing she needed was to be near
someone who attracted media attention.
She hesitated, then stepped in, her hand tightening on
the briefcase handle. A glance at the board of lights showed
he had already selected the parking garage.
"Working late tonight?" His voice was low, a trace of a
northeastern accent still present, his smile a pleasant one.
Her answer was a noncommittal nod.
The elevator began to silently descend.
She had spent too much time in European finishing
schools to slouch. Her posture was straight, her spine
relaxed, even if she was nervous. She hated elevators. She
should have taken the stairs.
"Quite a storm out there tonight."
The heels of her patent leather shoes sank into the jade
carpet as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
"Yes."
Three more floors to go.
There was a slight flicker to the lights, and then the elevator
jolted to a halt.
"What?" Sara felt adrenaline flicker in her system like the
lights.
He pushed away from the back wall. "A lightning hit
must have blown a circuit."
The next second, the elevator went black.
Ten seconds clicked by. Twenty. Sara's adrenaline sent her
heart rate soaring. Pitch black. Closed space.
Lord, no. It's dark. Get me out of this box!
"How long before they fix it?" She tried to keep her
words level and steady. She had spent years learning the control,
but this was beyond something she could control.
"It may take a few minutes, but they will find the circuit
breaker and the elevator will be moving again."
Sounds amplified in the closed space as he moved. He set
down his briefcase? She couldn't remember if there was a
phone in the elevator panel or not. How could she have ridden
in these elevators for three months and not looked for
something so simple?
"No phone, and what I think is the emergency pull button
seems to have no effect."
Sara took deep breaths, trying to slow down her heart
rate. Neither her cellular phone nor her signaling beeper
would work inside this elevator.
"You're very quiet," he said eventually.
"I want out of here," she replied slowly to hide the fact
her teeth were trying to chatter.
"There's nothing to be afraid of."
She wanted to reply, "You've never been locked in a
pitch-black root cellar and left to die before," but the memories
and the panic were already overwhelming her. Her coping
skills were failing when she needed them most. Her hand
clenched in the darkness, nails digging into her palm. She
could do this. She had no choice. It was only darkness.
"Consider it from my viewpoint. I'm stuck in the dark
with a beautiful woman. There could be worse fates."
She barely heard him. Lord, why tonight? Please, not this.]
Continues.
Continues.
