A Harmless Little Plan (Harmless #3)(3)

“For a guy who’s being charged with enough offenses to stay in prison for the rest of your life, Drew, you’re awfully demanding.”

“And for a guy who just kidnapped my girlfriend, you’re being an asshole, Mark.”

His eyes widen, jaw dropping, face gobsmacked.

And then he bristles.

“You know damn well that wasn’t me.”

“And you know damn well I didn’t do any of the things I’m charged with,” I reply.

“I know that!”

“Then DO SOMETHING about it! You’re Mark Paulson, for fuck’s sake!” I explode.

“Like what?”

“You’re the famous Senator James Thornberg’s grandson. According to Harry, you walk on water. Use that influence. Make calls. Get me the hell out of here so I can go get Lindsay.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Make it that simple.”

“There are limits to what I can do, Drew.”

“Push them all. Push every fucking limit until it breaks, then get me out of here.”

“If – if! -- there’s even the smallest chance I can get you out, it’ll take days. Weeks. Give me the microchip information so I can start pinpointing Lindsay’s location now.”

I stare him down.

Here’s the thing: I trust Mark Paulson with my life. With Lindsay’s life.

But my brain feels like someone filled it with wet helium balloons. I just got the shit kicked out of me in custody after a raid on my apartment for crimes I didn’t commit. “Mark Paulson” kidnapped my girlfriend from her father’s high-security compound.

I don’t know who to trust.

A flash of insight into Lindsay’s frame of mind the day we left the Island hits me between the eyes.

Mark lets out a nasty sigh of disbelief. He knows what I’m thinking. “That wasn’t me.”

I just look at him. He’s blurry on one side. I reach up to find a very raw right eye socket on my face. Pain blooms as I touch it.

“They really roughed you up,” he says with sympathy, handing me a small package of baby wipes from his breast pocket. I open them and gently blot the facial injuries.

“Nothing compared to what Stellan, Blaine and John are about to do to Lindsay. They won’t just kill her, Mark. You know that, right? You know.” My voice rises. “You know they’ll torment her like a cat with a captive mouse. They’ll wring every bit of sick pleasure from torturing her, and then they’ll do the worst thing imaginable.”

“Kill her,” he whispers.

“No. They’ll force her to live.” The idea of Lindsay in pain, wondering where I am, left to suffer by those jackals shoves my blood faster through me, making all my injuries throb. I’m a live wire with nowhere for the electricity to go.

He gives me a pained look, then his face goes blank, his long sigh the sound of determination. “I have a contact.”

“Good of you to think about that now.” I can hear the snarl in my voice. Don’t care.

Lindsay. Oh, God, Lindsay. What are they doing to you right now?

“It’s my dad.”

“Your dad’s dead.”

“No – this is my biological father.”

I squint. It hurts. “Your biological what?”

He shakes his head. “Remember Galt?”

Galt. Galt. Oh, yeah. Mark’s biodad. Deep undercover CIA. Whatever they did to me involved too many blows to the head. My thoughts feel like scrambled eggs.

So do my balls.

Mark continues. “Bottom line: I’ll have to go way, way outside the law to get you out. And if it doesn’t work, we both end up in prison.”

“If I can’t get to Lindsay, I might as well die.” I pull myself up and stretch, inventorying. My right shoulder’s been wrenched hard, a tendon screaming as I rotate the joint. I taste blood no matter how many times I swallow, and I’m stripped down to underwear. I don’t care.

Get me out.

The words turn into a non-stop thought that won’t let go. Getmeoutgetmeoutgetmeout.

“I wish I could say no one’s dying on my watch, Drew, but I can’t.”

When you spend days in a war-torn region in the desert, hours of monotony and boredom sprinkled in between minutes of terror and chaos, you learn to look at people differently. No shell. No walls. The look Mark and I exchange says thousands of words in seconds.

He’s pretty sure he can’t save Lindsay.

And I’m damn fucking sure I will.

“And I wish I could say I trust you with the GPS tracking system for Lindsay, but here’s the deal, Mark – get me the fuck out of here and I’ll give you that information.”

“She could die in the meantime.”

“She could die if the wrong people get that information. It’s the only way I can save her.”

“You really don’t trust me.”

“If the roles were reversed, would you trust me?” I wince as my eyes widen with emphasis, the skin tender and paper-thin. Compartmentalizing the pain is key now. Pretending it’s not there is how I survive.

It’s how I find Lindsay.

“Fuck.”

He spins on his heel and slams the door shut.