Demanding Ransom Read online

  DEMANDING RANSOM

  Megan Squires

  Copyright © 2013 Megan Squires

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1484844533

  ISBN-13: 148484453X

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  There aren’t enough pages in this book to contain all of my Thank You’s. With each novel I write, my list of

  encouragers, cheerleaders, and supporters grows,

  and I could not be more thankful.

  This book is dedicated to all of those that took the time

  to read Demanding Ransom first:

  my editors, my beta readers, my ARC readers, my amazing cover artists, and my friends.

  Thank you for everything you have contributed to Maggie and Ran’s story.

  PROLOGUE

  Doesn’t this thing go any faster? Isn’t dad always talking about those 177 horses under the hood of this hand-me-down Honda? Feels more like a horse-drawn carriage and I’m pretty sure I’m starting to hold up traffic and will get pulled over for driving well under the speed limit, if cops actually even do that. The least this car could do is keep up with the flow of traffic. Is that too much to ask?

  I ram the pedal all the way to the floorboards, anticipating the light to morph into green as I speed toward it, because it’s currently red. Like blood red. Come on, come on, turn already.

  Green… Go.

  I edge through the intersection, picking up the speed my white knuckled grip on the steering wheel begged for moments earlier. Stay green, stay green. The sedan rushes two more blocks; colored blurs of vehicles and pedestrians blend together at my periphery.

  My phone buzzes in my lap again, but I leave it. It would rob me of those few precious seconds I just gained if I try to fumble for it and read the latest text. Plus, Dad’s always harping on me to stop texting while driving. I think now is as good a time as any to start listening to him. I probably should have listened to him earlier.

  Two more miles. That’s it, not much further now.

  We ran two miles last year for fitness testing in P.E., and while my thirteen minute, twenty-three second finish time seemed lightning fast then, it feels like this piece-of-junk tank is trailing even slower than my legs did. Honestly, I might get there sooner if I abandon the car and hoof it on foot. Come on. Let’s go!

  Somehow, despite the less than ideal pace, I’ve fallen in sync with the lights, so for the next three I glide under their green glow. I should call him and tell him I’m on my way, but the no cell phone rule isn’t limited to just texting. He’d be furious if he heard my voice on the other end of the line, even under these circumstances. I know there’s a hands-free device planned for my stocking this Christmas, but that’s three months away. It would have been a nice going away present when I headed off to college a few weeks ago, but Dad is nothing if not a meticulous planner. But I’m sure he never could have planned for any of this.

  I suck in a shallow breath, since it seems like that’s all I’m able to do right now. Tiny, little breaths. I had tried to drag in longer inhales, but they kept stopping short, like some tight ball in my chest was pushing down on my lungs and prohibited any more oxygen from entering into my system. I yank on the taut pull of the shoulder harness to loosen the constriction and clench my teeth together until it hurts.

  One mile to go. Almost there.

  The light up ahead is green—it has been from the moment it came into view—so I doubt it will do me the favor of holding that hue until I’m able to sneak under it. But it looks like it’s going to. If I needed to stop, I’d have to start pressing the break right about now. But it’s not even yellow. Nope, still bright green.

  I gun it.

  ***

  The warm sensation spills across my brow when I rotate my head to the side, and there’s a pillow of glass at my hair. It makes an awful, crunching sound like someone walking across bits of loose gravel. My eyes hold shut—from pain maybe? Because it’s not to avoid the sunlight. That started slipping out of the sky before I even got in the car back in Davis. No, it must be from pain. But I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything, actually. And I don’t hear anything. Or at least nothing intelligible. Anything I can hear sounds funneled; the distorted echo of someone talking through a toilet paper roll or those tin can phones Mikey and I used to play with as kids. I strain to make out clear voices, but I just hear the popping of glass—pop, pop, pop—as it gets closer to my ears.

  “Ma’am, just a few more moments and they’ll have you outta there, okay?”

  Ma’am? Who is he talking to? I’m only nineteen years old and that doesn’t qualify me for being called ma’am. I almost want to sneak a glance toward the passenger seat to see if my mother is in the car with me, but I know that’s not possible. We haven’t shared the same breathing space for over nine years. No, he must be talking to me.

  Biting down hard on my bottom lip, I use the piercing sensation to center me. I can feel that. That hurts. Good. I’m not completely numb.

  “Can you feel anything, Ma’am?” There he goes again. He must be from the south or something with that overly polite way of addressing me. “If you can feel, I need you to tell me.”

  I bite down harder and iron floods my mouth. I feel that. And I feel my toes, too, trapped in the size-too-small, red leather pumps I stole off Cora’s dorm room floor. I knew the moment I forced them onto my feet that I’d regret it, because that throbbing sensation from nearly tourniqueting them echoed in my toes. But right now I’m so grateful for these shoes; I’m grateful for the heartbeat that pulses through my feet and lets me know I’m not completely numb. I muster the strength to pry my eyelids apart, ready to see the face of this annoying man that keeps calling me “Ma’am.”

  When I finally succeed, my gaze is met with two black boots, centered and planted just inches in front me, asphalt and shards of glass pressed up against their thick rubber tread.

  Oh God. I’m upside-down. Upside-down.

  If he’s standing, that must mean I’m…hanging. I crane my neck down (or up, or whatever direction it is), and both see and feel the slicing pull of the seatbelt across my lap—the only thing keeping me from slamming onto the roof—Oh God—the roof of my car.

  My whole world is turned completely on its head.

  For the second time today.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Ma’am, I need you to lie still.”

  The lights are so bright in here. Like at the dentist when they angle you back in those uncomfortable tan chairs and then give you sunglasses to shield the glare. Or maybe it’s to keep stray bits of the plaque they scrape off your teeth from flying into your eyes. That’s probably the real reason they make you wear them, because that would be revolting. Whatever it is, I could use sunglasses right now. Why don’t they have any in here?

  “Do you have some sunglasses I can borrow?” My voice is raspy, crackling like a pre-pubescent boy’s. I haven’t spoken since the phone call, and it feels like I have to relearn how to place my tongue against my teeth and the roof of my mouth to form the words and make them sound the way they should.

  He laughs at me, a low, sexy chuckle deep in his throat that catches me completely off-guard. “No, Ma’am. We don’t have sunglasses.” He turns to his left and mutters, “Trav, hand me that paper?”

  I assume whoever “Trav” is does as he’s told, because within seconds, and after the sound of tape being torn and paper rustling, the light dims significantly.

  “There. That any better?”

  I attempt a nod, but my neck won’t allow i
t. “Yes, much.”

  “You need to try to stay still, Ma’am.”

  I grit my teeth and open my eyes wide. “Ma’am? Really?”

  He laughs again. Now that the light isn’t as blinding, I can see him more clearly, which is weird because I’d always assumed you needed light to see. But before he was silhouetted against it, and now it diffuses softly across his face. He has a nice face. I like his face.

  Oh man, my head feels really light. So does my whole body. Like a balloon filled with helium. I like balloons, too. Geez, what did they give me?

  “You don’t want me to call you Ma’am?” He drags a hand through his hair and the brown strands situate back into their tousled position.

  “No, I don’t. I like your face and I like balloons, but I don’t like being called Ma’am.”

  A burst of laughter erupts from someone positioned near my head—probably Trav—but the guy in front of me holds his stoic gaze. “If you like my face, then why were you asking for sunglasses? That would make it pretty hard to see me.” I glimpse a coy smile pull up the corners of his mouth. His lips are full and ruby red. I like his lips, too.

  “Because you guys keep it so damn bright in here.”

  “Well, usually we can turn the lights down while we’re driving, but something went haywire with them last week. Repairing that has kind of taken a backseat to you know, saving lives and all,” he says, still placed in front of me. I hear Trav scribbling something down on a piece of paper nearby. “Plus, we’re supposed to keep a close watch on our patients. Lighting helps with that.”

  “You need light so you can see my face,” I explain, just in case he didn’t get it. “I have a nice face, too.”

  “Yes, Maggie, you have a nice face, too.” I can hear the smile in his voice and when his hand grasps my wrist, the shock of it spikes my breathing. “You have to slow down that heart rate or we’re going to get in trouble for not stabilizing you in the field.”

  “That would be easier to do if you didn’t touch me.” I wiggle my toes. The shoes are gone. Crap. I hope they weren’t left out there with my car. Cora’s is going to have my head if I don’t return them. Maybe she won’t notice they went missing. Not a chance. Cora notices everything.

  “You don’t want me to touch you?” He’s done checking my pulse, but his fingers still hover over my skin, fluttering my insides. “Cause I can switch with Trav and he can do all of this if you like. But I guarantee you, his ugly mug isn’t as pleasant to look at as my nice face.”

  “Dude, you’re cruel.” Trav pipes up from his post along the side of the ambulance wall. “It’s not right to mess with them when they’re drugged.”

  I nod—well more like roll—because nodding my head makes it loll side to side. If it weren’t attached to my neck, I think it might actually tumble right off my shoulders.

  “I’m not messing with her.” He checks my pulse again.

  “Whatever, Ran. What’s her rate?”

  “158.”

  A gust of air rushes out of Trav’s mouth and it smells like an odd mix of coffee and mint. “Dude, you seriously need to get that down.”

  “Working on it.” Ran pushes off his seat and presses something into an IV bag hanging above me. It looks like a balloon. Weird.

  “Are you qualified to do that?” I ask, gesturing toward the bag, lifting my hand slightly but it feels like there’s a twenty-pound weight coiled around it, tugging with an equal amount of resistance.

  “Administer an IV?” Ran asks at the same time he clips the cap on whatever is in his hands. “Yes, I am. I’m a paramedic and have completed over 1,500 hours of training. That should give me a little authority.” He drops the syringe into a canister near him and it clatters against the plastic. “I’m more than just a pretty face, Maggie.”

  Trav’s shoulders pull up and he situates himself in his seat. “Sit, Ran. We’re here.”

  I blink my eyes. “Where?”

  Ran slumps down next to me and wraps his hands around the metal frame of the stretcher I’m draped across. He stabilizes it as we rock over a speed bump and coast into park. “We’re at the hospital.”

  I expel a hot sigh of relief. “Oh good,” I smile, my head spinning like I’ve just completed a dozen pirouettes en pointe. “That’s exactly where I was headed.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I hate hospital gowns. They’re terrifying. They’re always faded, so I suppose they wash them, but I’m pretty certain the one I’m wearing is at least a decade old because I can’t even tell what the original pattern was to begin with. Looks something like flowers, but it could be cats for all I know, it’s so old and worn.

  And they don’t have backs to them. Mortifying problem number two. Worse than that, with my luck, the last person to wear mine probably died in it. Hospital gowns completely suck.

  But I guess my clothes sort of do at the moment, too. My skinny jeans had to be cut off of me, though I don’t remember much about that. I don’t remember much of anything, really. Especially not how I got the six-inch-long, three-inch-deep laceration in my upper right quad. When I came to after the accident, I’d assumed the warm liquid on my forehead was the result of a cut from all the glass that coated me like enormous shards of glitter. I’d never suspected it was from the steady seeping of my leg wound dangling above me, releasing copious amounts of blood; the steady flow of a sink faucet twisted on.

  I think I blacked out—well, I know I did—because all I remember is arriving at the hospital and saying something to Ran about how this was all really convenient since this destination was in my plans for the evening anyway. Then everything receded completely, sucking away any knowledge of what was going on around me as I lay there, totally unconscious, while the rest of the world continued on its merry way.

  Now I’m in a sterile, stark-white room. Not the ER anymore, so they must have transported me at some point. I glance to the end table next to the bed, hoping to find my cell phone, but it’s not on it. There’s a large pink cup with a bendy straw in it and I’m tempted to take a drink, but who knows if it’s even mine. They reuse these stupid gowns. I wouldn’t put it past them to reuse their beverage cups, too.

  “Miss Carson?” A slight woman with salt and pepper gray hair peeks through the crack in the door. “Are you awake?”

  “Yeah,” I murmur. I think I am at least.

  She skirts around the bed and comes up to my side, fastening a blood pressure cuff around my bicep. She squeezes several times and the device hisses as she watches the hands spin on the wall nearby. “And how are you feeling today?”

  “Today?” I glance toward the window and see the rays of light slicing through the metal blinds. They create horizontal lines across the parallel wall, like some type of striped, illuminated wallpaper. “As in, I was admitted yesterday and you want to know how I’m feeling today.”

  She gives me a sideways glance. “Yes, Miss Carson. How are you today?”

  I huff a gust of air that lifts my hair from my face. “I’m fine today.”

  “And your leg,” she continues, recording something in the binder that’s hooked over the foot of my bed. “Is it causing you any problems?”

  I lift the crisp sheet off my lap and glance toward my thigh, but it’s bandaged in several coils of flesh-colored medical dressings. “It’s fine, too. Err—I think it is. I can’t really feel it.”

  “Miss Carson, you were in a serious car accident yesterday. How is your pain level on a scale of one to ten?”

  I shake my head. “One to ten?”

  “Yes—one being a paper cut, ten being your leg cut off.”

  “Holy crap! Talk about your extremes,” I blurt, drawing my chin back into my neck. The nurse doesn’t blink. “It appears like I still have all of my limbs, so I’d say a five. What’s that compared to?”

  “To a deep laceration. And since that’s what you have on your leg, I’d say that’s appropriate.”

  “Well good then. I’m glad I match up.”

&
nbsp; She shoots me a quick, humoring smile as she continues writing in my records. “Is there anything I can get you for now, Miss Carson?”

  I push with my hands against the thin mattress and scoot upward in the hospital bed, but the muscle in my right leg is completely dead, and the act takes much more upper body strength than it normally would. “Yes,” I reply, still trying to situate myself in the bed. She comes to my side and grasps my arm to assist me. “Can you send my brother, Mike Carson, in?”

  Her grip tenses and her fingers dig slightly into the flesh on my bicep, just enough to leave five little crescent marks on my skin. “No one has spoken to you?” Her eyes are wide and her lips quiver, though she tries to mask it. Talk about your terrible bedside manner.

  “No, no one has spoken to me.” I give her a stern look that she attempts to avoid by staring down at my arm like she’s assessing something. “Spoken to me about what?”

  “I’ll go find your father, Maggie.”

  “I asked for my brother,” I clarify, but before I have a chance to ask what is going on, she’s out the door, and I’m left in the cold room alone, feeling numb, like I’m dangling upside-down all over again.

  ***

  “Maggie Girl.” He breathes into my hair and the hot air should warm me, but chills my scalp all the way down to my toes instead. “Don’t you dare do that to me again, do you understand?”

  Do I understand? No, of course I don’t understand. I still have absolutely no idea what is happening here, why I’m the one in this hospital bed, and why no one seems to want to give me a straight answer about Mikey.

  “Dad,” I speak, my voice soft not because I’m trying to be quiet, but because it’s the only volume that comes out when I open my mouth. Even if I tried to talk louder, I doubt I’d be successful. “Seriously, what’s going on? Where’s Mikey?”

  Dad purses his lips and his straight brow knits together. I’ve seen this look on him before. It makes an appearance when he’s searching for the right words to say—the perfect delivery for a speech he’s already prepared. He had the same face nine years ago when he told us Mom wasn’t coming home.