‘Who the hell is that?’
‘Your wife,’ Gizmo said.
‘No she bloody isn’t.’
Black Boots looked back at her, his tanned cheeks suddenly going pale. ‘That’s not your wife?’
Scrawny Man shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen her before in my life.’
They all stared at her. Maybe there was some little ray of hope. They’d clearly kidnapped the wrong person and now she would be set free.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Scrawny Man said. ‘If she’s here, who the hell has got my wife?’
‘No one, there are no other teams. Your wife is probably still standing at the pick-up point. Or gone home, bored of waiting.’
‘Bloody hell, I’ve paid four hundred pounds for this and you can’t even pick up the right woman. I bought Viagra and everything.’
‘Look, Ethan will be in touch with you. We’ll arrange a full refund or an alternative date but right now we have the very small matter of abducting a complete stranger off the street to deal with.’ Black Boots gestured to Izzy in exasperation and Scrawny Man nodded.
‘Right, of course. If the press get hold of this I want full anonymity.’
‘The press won’t get hold of this – besides, you’re not actually doing anything wrong.’
Scrawny Man nodded again. ‘I better call my wife.’
Izzy watched as he retreated back up the stairs. Gizmo and Black Boots continued to stare at her.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Gizmo asked.
‘I can’t believe you grabbed the wrong woman.’
‘Me? You told me it was her.’
‘The boss is going to kill us,’ Black Boots said.
‘We could not tell him.’
‘How do you suppose that’s going to work? We let her go now, she’ll go straight to the police. The police will come straight to Ethan with your description, you’re hardly inconspicuous.’
Gizmo paled. ‘I’m not going back to jail, no way.’
Izzy moaned against her gag and Black Boots approached her like she was a caged wild animal.
Carefully he removed the bandana from her mouth.
‘Please, let me go. There’s obviously been some terrible mistake. I promise, I won’t go to the police. I won’t tell anyone.’
Black Boots looked back at Gizmo. Gizmo shook his head, ‘She’s seen our faces. There’s no way I’m letting her go.’
‘Are you insane? We’re not criminals. What are you going to do with her, kill her and dump her body where no one will ever find her?’
Izzy’s heart, which had been slowing when she realised she wasn’t the intended target, started galloping again.
‘Please. Please don’t hurt me.’
‘We’re not going to hurt you.’ Black Boots leaned over to untie her from the headboard. But as she sat up Gizmo marched over and pulled the bag back over her head.
‘What are you doing?’ Black Boots said.
‘We’ll take her to the boss, he’ll know what to do.’
‘Jesus, Gizmo, we’re just making this situation worse.’
But Gizmo, it seemed, wasn’t to be talked out of this. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder again. She saw the stone steps and then the gravel outside, and she was back inside the darkness of the van a moment later.
The van journey was quite short but Gizmo and Black Boots were silent.
They surely weren’t going to kill her.
But she had seen their faces, she knew the van’s number plate off by heart. Why would they let her go?
How had it come to this? Her day had started so normally. Since being fired from her job two weeks before, she hadn’t had to get up too early, but her beloved cat Pete had woken her up demanding to be fed. She’d studiously ignored the first trickle of bills that had arrived on her doorstep. There were bound to be many more to come. She’d fed the cat, fed herself the remains of the cereal, gone for a run and spent three hours applying for different jobs. Bar maid, waitress, secretary, cleaner, bin man – or in her case, bin lady – sports coach, carpenter and driver’s mate, she’d applied for them all. She came across well on the phone, she had good experience and was never sick. She worked hard and most people seemed interested until they asked the fateful question. ‘Why did you leave your last job?’ Being fired for breaking her boss’s nose was not a selling point. Most people rapidly lost interest after that.
She’d wandered down to the college to see if there were any more free courses she could sign up for but she’d already done most of them. She’d just been on her way to meet her Aunt Sophie for coffee when Gizmo and Black Boots had crashed into her life.
The van stopped and she heard them climb out, leaving her alone in the darkness.
‘WHAT?’ roared a voice nearby as no doubt their boss, Ethan, was just informed they had kidnapped the wrong person.
‘WHAT?’ roared Ethan even louder as he was no doubt told she was still tied up in the van with a bag over her head. He sounded like a man not to mess with and Izzy found herself shaking again.
She heard running footsteps and the van door was thrown open. The bag was yanked from her head and she looked into the fierce blue eyes of the most freaking gorgeous man she had ever seen. He was huge, not quite as big as Gizmo in height but certainly the same broadness. He had curly dark hair and the same Mediterranean skin tone as Black Boots, which made the azure blue eyes stand out even more. In fact his eyes didn’t belong in someone so dark and they made him look interesting and unusual. He stared at her for a moment. Was he checking her out? Izzy nearly laughed at this crazy thought – she was dressed in tatty leggings, an oversized hoodie and battered knee high boots, there was definitely nothing sexy about her, but the look in his eyes was undeniably hunger, as if he wanted to eat her.
He moved forward to grab her and Izzy flinched away from him.
‘I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’m Ethan Chase. I’m so sorry about all this. Let me make you a cup of tea and I will explain everything.’
He took her arms in surprisingly gentle hands, pulled her to her feet and helped her down from the van.
Her legs were shaking and she wasn’t sure if she could stand.
‘Are you ok to walk? Here, let me help.’
Before she could answer, Ethan swept her up into his arms and carried her like a baby into his office. Gizmo and Black Boots were standing to one side, looking sheepish.
‘Get out, both of you.’
They hurried out and Ethan placed her in a chair. He knelt next to her and started to undo the rope around her hands. The office was a mess. There was a big desk with a phone that was ringing quietly. Paperwork was strewn everywhere, in piles on the floor, even on the big comfy sofa in the corner. There was a very swish looking computer with some kind of diary on the screen and mouldy coffee cups in various degrees of decay were all over the floor, windowsills and on top of the filing cabinet.
Sunlight was spilling through the open door and Izzy looked out at the fields and trees stretching as far as the eye could see. She tried