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  Vince had no idea and ignored her last question. “So another boat? Or did he have a lifeboat here?”

  “I guess that’s possible,” Vanessa said to answer his question. “We didn’t hear another motor boat, but he might have had a Zodiac he could have unloaded and used to get to another boat, leaving us all alone.”

  “The thing is, why would they leave us alone?” Dr. Walker asked. “Wouldn’t they have come back after us?”

  “They could just be keeping an eye on us,” Tony said, turning to Vince, a question in his eyes.

  Vince shook his head. “We saw nobody else on the ocean. Granted, the first part we spent in the storm, so there was no seeing much of anything. But, after the storm passed, we’ve had no sightings of other ships or boats in this area.”

  “Well,” Tony continued, “you know we wouldn’t have survived for too long. Not much fresh water was down there. Give us a week, ten days. The kidnappers could come back then, open up the hatch, find us all dead, toss our bodies in the sea and retake the ship. It’s not like they didn’t know where we were.”

  Vanessa shook her head, seemingly in deep thought again. “This boat was not anchored, not the way it was tossed about in the storm, going for long stretches in one way until it twisted in another direction. And, given the storm, this boat is probably nowhere near where the kidnappers left us.”

  “But the kidnappers must have had some purpose for taking you in the first place,” Johan said. “Do you have any idea what it is?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “But why didn’t they just kill us when they first boarded the research ship?” Vanessa asked, not really expecting an answer, just formulating her thoughts while staring at the floor. “They were armed. They were brutal enough.” Then her head popped up to focus on her rescuers. “I presume you guys think the research ship is still in this area, right? And that there have been no ransom demands for the ship or for any of our team members either, correct?” At their nods, she continued, “If the kidnappers weren’t taking the research ship to resell or for their own purposes, and they weren’t ransoming us or the ship off for money, why go to the trouble to move us at all? Again, I ask, why didn’t they just kill us immediately?”

  Vince studied them. “Because they didn’t want to stir up an international event and wanted only the other doctor?”

  Vanessa looked at him. “That’s two scary thoughts.” She frowned. “But, even so, why not kill us on this boat and leave our dead bodies here for the storm and the sea to finish off? We’d never be found again. International crisis could never be proven and thus would be averted.”

  Johan said, “Because they wanted to hide you, still alive, for a while? Or hide your bodies permanently at sea, with no bullet wounds to lead back to them and their guns.”

  That caused Vanessa to shudder. “Regardless of these questions that just won’t leave me alone, one thing seems certain. Considering Dr. Sanchez is the only one of my team not here, it’s very possible the gunmen only wanted her.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She is a sweetheart,” Vanessa snapped. “I refuse to talk about her as if she’s already dead.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Vince said defensively, holding up his hand. “Just calm down. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on here.”

  “Well, I personally would like to get onto your boat,” Dr. Walker said, “and go home.”

  “We can’t leave her,” Vanessa said in outrage. “She wouldn’t leave you alone.”

  Dr. Walker shoved his hands in his pockets. “Maybe,” he said with fatigue in his voice. “But we have no idea where she is or who’s taken her or why. So how the hell do you expect to find her?”

  “The same way these guys found us.” She turned to Vince. “How did you find us?”

  “We came in the direction of your last-known location,” he said calmly. “We were looking for your research ship and happened to find this boat first.”

  “So by accident.” Dr. Walker sneered. “That’s helpful.”

  “Hardly an accident,” Johan said, directing an insolent glare at Dr. Walker. “We did come to the right area. Now, if we can find your original vessel, that would tell us if she’s on board with the kidnappers.”

  “It’s possible,” Vanessa said. “Our research vessel is worth millions of dollars. It’s a hell of a lot better than this one.”

  “And, of course, on the black market, it’s worth a lot more money too,” Vince said with a nod. “We’ll take you to our rig, and we’ll contact our boss to find out what they might see from current satellite data, now that the storm has cleared this area. There must be a way to track your boat. I’m sure you have some tracking system on it.”

  “We ran into a storm,” Tony said. “Some of our systems were disabled.”

  “Or were disabled for us,” Vanessa said, her voice hardened. “Maybe we were targeted right from the beginning. I don’t know. It just makes me very angry that poor Laura isn’t here too.”

  “Whether she’s here or not,” Dr. Walker said, “the least we can do is save ourselves.”

  Vanessa turned to glare at him. Her disgust was evident.

  Vince already didn’t like Dr. Walker. Neither did Vanessa, but she remained so passionate and still had so much anger even after two days of captivity. He wondered where she had gotten so much spirit. Certainly not from George, who seemed very calm and placid. Vanessa was the opposite. She used her hands when she spoke; her facial expressions twisted and changed with everything she said. She was so animated that it was a joy to watch.

  She turned to Jasper. “You have any ideas?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “No, why would I?”

  “Because you’ve been working under her for the last year. Do you have any idea why she would be targeted?”

  He shook his head, a frown pulling his eyebrows together in the center of his forehead. “No,” he said, “I don’t. She isn’t from America though. Would that make any difference?”

  Vanessa said, “She’s Colombian, although I’m not sure that makes a difference.”

  Jasper added, “She worked at the university, but she was from Colombia originally.”

  At the name of her birth country, Vince felt a sock to his stomach. “That can bring another whole twist into this event. What’s her full name? We’ll run a search on her, see if somebody in the family has contacted them asking for ransom money.”

  “When anybody thinks of Colombia,” Dr. Walker said, “their mind immediately goes to drugs and drug cartels. Chances are, this has absolutely nothing to do with that.”

  “Maybe,” Johan said. “But this is a missing person, one Dr. Sanchez. If you were the one missing, we’d be looking for you. So, until we know she’s not alive, we’ll go on the assumption that she is.” His phone rang, and he stepped away from the group to answer it.

  “What does that mean?” Dr. Walker barked to one and all. “Take us back to the mainland. We can take flights home and get our lives back together again. You can mount a rescue mission for Dr. Sanchez, if you want,” Dr. Walker said in exasperation, “but the rest of us would like to go home where we belong.”

  Vanessa bounced forward. “Speak for yourself. Not me. I’m not leaving her alone.”

  “Good for you. Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me. You can stay here and die if you want, but I want to go home,” Dr. Walker shouted. “This is not my world. It’s not how I want to live. It’s nothing I’m comfortable with. I just want to go home to my family.”

  Vince understood how this wasn’t everybody’s kind of life. And, if Vince had a wife and kids, it would make it that much harder to stay away from them. “I hope as soon as we get the message out that we found you four, we’ll get more information. If your vessel is somewhere close by, we’ll find it. There is, indeed, a lot of money involved, a lot of research data involved, and a lot of people want to see that all is retrieved and back in the hands of its rightf
ul owners.”

  Dr. Walker seemed to collapse in on himself. “Fine. But could we get to your boat please? This one has a ton of bad memories.”

  Vince nodded. “Absolutely. Come on. Let’s get you guys over there. If anybody needs medical supplies, we have some with us.”

  Johan rejoined them. “We found your vessel. It’s only a few nautical miles from here. Satellite isn’t picking up anyone on board at this time, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty.”

  “Then we’ll go see,” Vince said. “It’s close, and, if several of you are okay to pilot it back to port, then we should try to reclaim it.”

  On that note, Vince carefully moved them all from one boat to the other. They also had an injured man to carry over. That was tricky, but Vince and Johan managed it. And when that was done, hating too, but knowing they to, they cut the rope and let the old research vessel go. He’d snagged the GPS coordinates to send to the local government officials to track—if they cared.

  Otherwise, she would bounce around in the waves for another ten years before somebody put her to good use. He was kind of sorry it wouldn’t be him. She had the looks of a boat that had survived a long time and had lived through a lot of assholes.

  Chapter 5

  Vanessa watched from the bow of the boat as they approached her research vessel. It floated as pretty as can be on the waves. That made no sense for the kidnappers to leave it behind, but she wasn’t about to argue. She was just so damn glad to see this ship. She’d tried to avoid thinking about all the data they’d procured and other research materials they had with them before being kidnapped. Surely most had been backed up, but what hadn’t been?

  That was what had twisted her around sideways with worry.

  And her missing friend, of course. Her deepest fear was that they’d get to the research ship and find her lifeless body discarded below deck somewhere, uncaring of the precious life they’d snuffed out so callously.

  If they’d treated Laura as roughly as they’d treated Vanessa, it was all too likely they could have killed her in the process, even accidentally.

  With Johan piloting, they sidled up to the larger research ship. She itched to jump on board and race to the lab, but Vince was adamant she wasn’t going with him.

  Tony stepped up beside her, his voice low and said, “They make me feel bad.”

  Startled, she looked at him. “In what way?”

  She watched the wave of embarrassment flush over his cheeks. “They are so capable,” he admitted. “I’m a man too, but I can’t do what they are doing. Not in a million years could I even pretend to be as capable, as macho as they are.”

  “Does that matter?” She kept her voice down so the others, particularly Dr. Walker, who’d make fun of Tony, couldn’t hear. “Not all males can be alphas. That would defeat the logic of the term. And the world needs betas. We need the researchers and the steady forward-marching males like you,” she added with a smile, slipping her arm through his. “They are who they are, and you are who you are. Rejoice in the difference of being you.”

  He chuckled and squeezed her arm. “Thank you for that.”

  She pointed Johan out as he jumped onto their research ship. “At least now Vince has backup if he needs it.”

  Her team was assembled on the deck of the older boat, slightly hidden, as they’d been ordered, so as not to make them easy targets. They collectively stared at the ship. Not even a shadow moved on board the research ship as the men approached. Even with Vince’s arrival, she had heard no sound coming from the ship.

  Why kidnap the team and leave the most valuable physical item behind?

  Of course, that brought her back to the fact that, if the kidnappers had left this basically new research ship behind, then they didn’t want it. What they wanted was what they had already seized—the team. But not the whole team. Likely just the missing member.

  Dr. Laura Sanchez.

  *

  Vince swept through the top deck, then sent an all-clear notice to Johan. As soon as he arrived, Vince would go below, but, in this situation, backup was always a good idea.

  Hearing Johan’s light thud, announcing his arrival on deck, Vince gave the signal and slowly descended to the lower level. He moved as silently as he could, crouching to see who might be waiting for him. Even with his best efforts, the floorboards on the stairs squeaked. Weapon out, at the bottom of the stairs, he did a search of the first room.

  Empty.

  Nerves on high alert, with Johan slipping behind him, he searched each room, one at a time.

  Nothing.

  He turned to Johan, a question in his eyes.

  Johan shook his head. “Obviously they didn’t want the ship. Or planned to collect it later.”

  “That means then, they were after the crew. And likely just one member.”

  Exchanging grim looks, they returned to the deck. “It’s empty,” Vince called across. “So Tony and Jasper, come on over here with me, and we’ll travel back in tandem.”

  It took only a few minutes to get everyone organized.

  Vince laughed as Vanessa joined him on the research vessel only to disappear underneath.

  Obviously she had her priorities. The guys ran through an engine check, and, hearing the powerful motor start, a cheer went up from both vessels.

  Chapter 6

  It had taken long hours to get here, but they were all back in port and pulled up at the marina.

  Vanessa had spent the bulk of the time saving the work that hadn’t been saved before being kidnapped. She figured the only reason to take them off the research vessel was to stop anyone from finding them. Yet, the research ship was easy to locate with its high-tech equipment.

  That the kidnappers hadn’t damaged anything on board was a miracle as well. It had taken her hours to get all their work to the point of shutting down the project here. She’d hoped to send a backup of all their data to cloud storage, but the weather wasn’t cooperating, and she’d been forced to manually copy a full backup to disks and USB keys. If the weather permitted, the scheduled backup could still happen, but she wasn’t taking any chances on losing her work.

  She sat on the dock, watching as their hostage was loaded onto a gurney. The local police had been less-than-friendly over the incident until a few favors had been called in to ease the explanations.

  She chewed on her bottom lip, her arms crossed over her chest, as the kidnapper was loaded into an ambulance. She hated that she felt guilty. He certainly had no intention of leaving her alive, and yet, she had left him alive. Maybe not by much though.

  Jasper stood at her side. Guilt made deep furrows into his face.

  “We didn’t have much choice,” she said in a low voice for at least the third time.

  “I know,” he said. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  It didn’t make her feel any better either. She rubbed her temples. “I want to find Dr. Sanchez.”

  “Good luck with that,” Jasper said. “Those men were probably after her, and they didn’t want any of us tagging along. Poor Laura. Dr. Sanchez, I mean.”

  “Maybe,” Vanessa said. “I really like her. She’s been there for me over some tough years, and she’s not the kind to stab you in the back. Instead, she’s always got a hand out to help. I just think what it would be like if it was me alone out there. I’d want somebody to rescue me. I get that the others want to leave, and that’s fine. No way I’m leaving her out there alone.”

  “And again, I don’t think you’ll have that choice,” Jasper said sadly. “There’s no sign of her.”

  Just then the two men strode up beside them. “We have a vehicle coming to take you guys to the airport,” Vince said. “There isn’t much in the way of a consulate here, but, if that’s what you want to do, you can also go there.”

  Vanessa jutted her chin out. “I want to go after Dr. Sanchez.”

  Vince’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, that’s not happening. We need skilled people—skilled in our line of work
—not someone who is likely to get kidnapped again. Our job was to rescue you. Now that that’s completed, we’ve decided we’re going after Dr. Sanchez.”

  She snorted. “When you took this assignment, you didn’t even know she was missing.”

  “No,” he admitted. “We didn’t. And that makes it worse. We only knew about you four team members.”

  Her brows furrowed. “There were actually six. One left early, obviously the lucky one,” she said almost bitterly. “Dr. Sanchez was still here with us.”

  “But she was supposed to leave,” Jasper reminded her. “She changed her plans last minute.”

  “Did Dr. Sanchez replace the one who left?”

  Vanessa shook her head. “There was a mix-up based on a series of paperwork issues. She decided not to risk the rest of her research trip so stayed to finish her part.”

  “The paperwork mix-up is likely why we were confused as the number of people on your team,” Johan said. He glared at her. “We need you to go to the airport now. Our job was to return you to the mainland safe and sound. Please contact your father. We already contacted our boss to let him know we’ve completed the job.”

  There was just something off about thinking of her as a job. She understood these men had a job to do, and they had done it. But it still felt wrong to consider her in that light. “And who’ll pay your wages to go after Dr. Sanchez?”

  The two men looked at each other and shrugged. “We’ll probably do it pro bono,” Vince said. “We do a certain amount of jobs like that every year anyway, so this just happens to be another one.” In a cool voice, he continued, “We don’t do this for the money. We’re both ex-military. When we left the military, we decided to continue being of service. This is what we do.”

  She was ashamed of her comment. “I’m sorry.” She ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “I have no excuse except I’m worried about Laura. Here we are safe and sound, some of us ready to fly home—where we can have hot showers and see our families and sleep in a real bed again—but Laura could be in horrible danger. For all I know, she’s already been raped and tortured.” Her words were bitter. “She was the only other woman on board. It’s hard for me to ignore her plight.”