The Mist

Chapter 7

Boston, Massachusetts

3:40 p.m., EDT

August 25

A phone call…

Abigail Browning remembered teasing Scoop and Fiona from her back porch about tomatoes. She’d been laughing when she’d gone inside to answer the phone.

She was between the two men who’d grabbed her off the street a few minutes later and was walking with them now on what felt like a marina dock. They’d thrown a smelly car blanket over her head and shoved guns in her ribs. They were pure, brazen, hired thugs who obviously would prefer to shoot her and dump her body-or not to have kidnapped her in the first place.

They’d have just let her burn up in the fire.

She smelled saltwater and the fishiness of low tide. The sounds of boats in front of her and traffic behind her suggested a marina in busy Boston Harbor.

She suppressed her anger and fear and concentrated on what was in her control right now, at this moment.

She could listen, assess, stay alert.

Conserve her energy and try to survive.

“You should take the blanket off my head. It’ll draw attention.”

“Anyone asks, we’ll say you’re seasick, and the bright light makes it worse,” the man on her right side said in a South Boston accent. “You go along with us.”

“How? Turn green on command?”

He inhaled sharply, telling her he didn’t like her answer.

Didn’t like her.

She’d debated staying out on the porch and not answering the phone. Owen would call her on her cell phone. Tom Yarborough, her partner, would page her or try her cell first. But her father and Simon were on their way, and they would call her home phone if something came up.

It was hot outside, and Abigail had figured she’d scoot into the kitchen, take the call and fill a pitcher of iced tea and bring it out.

Her front doorbell had rung as she’d answered her phone.

Or was she imagining that part?

No. She was sure.

The voice on the other end of the line had been very clear and precise. It hadn’t been the man with the South Boston accent. Probably the driver of the van waiting in the street. “In five seconds,” he’d said, “a bomb will go off on your back porch. Five…four…”

By three, Abigail was in the living room.

At zero, as promised, came the explosion, thrusting her to the floor and sucking the wind out of her. She’d crawled to her feet, her ears ringing as she’d pulled open her front door.

Scoop…Fiona…Bob…she remembered thinking she had to get to them.

She’d run into the main entry and opened that door. As she’d leaped down the steps, two men swooped in on her in a coordinated maneuver and dragged her to the van. Disoriented from the blast, she’d clawed one of them-the one with the Southie accent-enough to draw blood, but she’d been unable to do more to defend herself.

They stuffed her in the back of the van, dived in with her and sped off, a third man at the wheel.

Three armed men against her. Not good odds. When they finally came to a stop, the driver had muttered something about going on ahead to get things ready and left Abigail with the two men in the back of the van.

“Careful,” the man to her left said now. “We don’t want to lose you to the sharks, do we?”

“Sharks,” she said through the blanket. “Funny.”

Half lifting, half shoving her, they got her onto what was obviously a boat. A decent size one, too. They forced her down narrow steps before pulling the blanket off her head and taking her into a small, dark stateroom, where they pushed her onto a metal chair.

Working quickly, they blindfolded her with some kind of scarf, tying it so tightly, it pulled even her short hair enough that her eyes teared up. Using what felt like rope, they tied her hands and ankles to the chair back and legs.

Abigail knew she had to control panic and claustrophobia before they could get started and spiral, taking on a life of their own. She breathed in through her mouth to the count of eight. She held her breath for eight. She exhaled through her nose for eight.

Finally she said, “I hope you didn’t bleed on me.”

Her sarcasm was met with a backhand smack to the left side of her face, striking her cheekbone. The pain was immediate and searing, but she bit it back.

“Ouch,” she said without inflection.

“It’ll be a pleasure to kill you when the time comes,” the man with the Southie accent said.

She did her breathing exercise again.

In for eight. Hold for eight. Out for eight.

“Estabrook and his Brit friend can deal with her,” the man added “This whole business stinks. I’m going up for a drink.”

“They’ll be here in a few hours,” the second man said.

“Then they can have a drink with me.”

Abigail heard a door shut, the click of a lock turning. She listened, but heard no one breathing nearby, no footsteps.

She was alone.

Estabrook.

So. Norman Estabrook was free. He was the reason Abigail’s father and Simon were in Boston. The reason, ultimately, that she’d called them that morning and asked to talk to them.

Had Estabrook just tried to carry out his threat to kill the men he claimed had betrayed him?

Abigail did three more sets of her breathing exercises and pictured Owen on his deck at his summer house on Mount Desert Island, smiling at her. He was rugged, hard-edged, a sexy mix of Boston and Texas, a search-and-rescue expert and a man of action who wouldn’t take to having his fiancée kidnapped.

But what if he’d been targeted, too?

And Simon and her father. What about them? Had the men who’d grabbed her known they were en route to see her?

Did they know why?

She stopped the thoughts in their tracks. Even if she was alone, there could be a surveillance camera in the room. She didn’t need to spool up if she were being watched for signs of distress.

In for eight. Hold. Out for eight.

The boat got underway. The marine patrol would be on the lookout for her. She hoped her captors made a mistake-that they’d already made one and the yacht was under watch now, SWAT planning her rescue.

Owen…

Abigail saw him coming to her on a moonlit Maine night and felt him making love to her, imagined every touch, every murmur of his love and passion. She heard the waves crashing on the rocks outside their window and the cries of the seagulls in the distance.

He was with her.

Whatever happened, Owen was with her.