Prologue

Kelly’s head was throbbing when she woke and she felt nauseated and confused. She tried to shake the foggy feeling in her head and the cotton feeling in her mouth. Panic set in when she realized her hands and feet were bound with thick layers of duct tape and she was in a room she didn’t recognize. Kelly felt as though a band was tightening over her chest, suffocating her and she struggled to breathe as waves of panic swept over her and bile burned at the base of her throat.

She was lying on the floor in a typical bedroom; a bit small. It was daylight out. There was a twin-sized bed, and a torn-up upholstered chair in the corner, but that was it. The room was bare, other than those two pieces of furniture.

Kelly fought to pull details from her mind, grasping at threads of memory so thin they seemed to fall from her memory before she could see where they went. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths and pictured herself earlier in the day. It would have been noon when she was grabbed. She had left the clinic at noon.

She could remember walking out the back door of the clinic. Denise had asked her to take the trash to the dumpster on her way out so she left through the back door even though her car was parked out front. Out front, where her security detail would have been.

She struggled to remember, but felt like there were holes in her mind, like her brain wasn’t quite functioning right. She could remember someone coming at her from behind as she walked out into the alley, then a strong, sweet smell filled her nose and overwhelmed her before she blacked out. Nothing about the memory seemed right, like trying to put together pieces of different puzzles.

Tears were flowing freely now. Kelly could picture four men surrounding her and she remembered seeing a van before she passed out. The men had worn masks….

Staying calm was no longer an option. Fresh waves of sheer terror bolted through Kelly’s body. She closed her eyes tight and tried desperately to calm herself, but she had never felt a level of dread and utter anguish like this. Her mind started running through all the ways that this could end, each image sending her into further panic until she felt like she would choke on the fear. Then one image stopped her catapult into darkness. Jack.