Dead By Nightfall by Beverly Barton Read Free Book Online Page B

before she could follow the woman, a muscle-bound man with dark hair, beard, and mustache closed the door in her face.
    Nic pressed herself, forehead first, her open palms following, against the wooden door. She curled her hands into fists and beat repeatedly against the locked door. After venting her vexation, she pushed aside her anger and fear and faced the facts. At the present moment, there was absolutely nothing she could do to free herself. There was no point in wasting her energy on useless emotions. In order to survive today and in the days ahead, she would be forced to adapt. She had to stay alive. And she had to protect her unborn child.
    Lifting herself away from the locked and guarded door, Nic marched straight toward the silver serving tray. After taking a seat, she removed the covers from the dishes and poured herself a cup of hot tea. She was hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. That wasn’t good for her or her baby. Even though she was slightly nauseated, she forced herself to eat. First a piece of the delicious bread that she smothered with butter and jelly. After finishing off the bread and first cup of tea, she picked up a fork and speared a chunk of fresh pineapple.
    All the while she nourished her body and the child inside her, Nic tried to remember everything from the moment she had left the airplane until she had been drugged and later locked in this room. She thought about the sounds she had heard, the scents she had smelled, the feel of the road beneath the jeep. The road had been bumpy, as if it were gravel or even dirt, and filled with potholes. Apparently the plane had landed somewhere on a private airstrip out in the middle of nowhere. There had been no distinct sounds or scents coming from a town or even a village they might have passed through on their journey from the jeep to the boat. She recalled only ambiguous nocturnal sounds, the feel of hot, muggy air and the smell of ripe vegetation. Nic suspected they were somewhere tropical, somewhere more than four hours from Knoxville, Tennessee. The warm, balmy breeze and the scent of saltwater suggested that they were near the ocean. A heavy floral perfume blended with the feel of humidity against her skin added weight to her supposition that they were in Mexico, Central America, or the Caribbean.
    Lina’s accent had not been Spanish. Did that mean Nic could rule out being in Mexico or Central America? Yes? No? Maybe? Not necessarily?
    Because she suspected that Lina’s native tongue was a bastardized version of other languages, Nic’s gut instinct told her that she was in the Caribbean, on one of the islands where some type of either French patois or Creole Papia-mento was spoken. Then again, Lina could have been transported from her original home and might even be a captive forced into servitude.
    Did it really matter where she was? For all she knew, they could be on an uncharted, private island or in the jungles of Central America somewhere. Her suppositions could be wrong. Besides, what made her think she would ever get the chance to talk to Griff and manage to send him a coded message concerning her whereabouts?
    Â 
    â€œRaphael ... my sweet boy ...” Yvette murmured the words in her half-awake, half-asleep state.
    She sensed his presence as if he were nearby, close enough to reach out and touch him. But he wasn’t there beside her. She had dreamed about him, her dream a memory of long ago. Choosing not to open her eyes, she allowed the image of his face to appear inside her thoughts, the face of an angelic boy, the face of a teenage Raphael, not the transformed face of the twenty-year-old who had emerged from the London hospital.
    If only we could have done more to help you. We offered to take you with us, but you refused. We knew what you intended to do and neither Griff nor Sanders nor I tried to stop you. Would it have done any good if we had tried harder?
    The first time she had held the