“Where are we going?” I asked Hillary, wondering why she wasn’t saying much, just driving as fast as she could without telling me a damn thing.
Silence.
“Hey, whatever is happening, I can handle it.”
“We’ve been friends a long time, right?”
An odd question, but I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. If I had the ability to protect you, I would.”
“Okay. Yeah, babe. I got it. I’d do the same for you.”
“And if something happened out of my control, I would do my best to make it right.”
“This is a weird conversation. What kind of trouble are you in?”
“The kind where we’re both in trouble.”
For the first time, I felt uneasy. “Stop the car, Hills.”
“I can’t.”
“Honey, stop the car. We’ll figure this out.”
“I can’t! They’ll kill both of us if I don’t cooperate.”
They? “What the hell are you talking about? Stop the car!”
“No, babe. There’s no way to get around this. If I don’t bring you in, they go after Zane. Do you understand?”
“Shit.” Holy fuck! Who did she piss off?
“We have to protect him. That’s why we can’t stop the car.”
“Who are we meeting, Hills?”
“Bad, bad people. You just keep your cool, and I’ll do the same, okay?”
I didn’t know if I could do that. “Zane is texting me.”
“Don’t answer.”
The phone vibrated in my pocket as I pulled it free and nearly swiped across to answer. Hillary knocked it from my hand as the car swerved and almost ran off the road.
“Don’t answer. Don’t do anything with it. Power it off, honey. Keep Zane and his location safe. They don’t know where he is right now.”
Nodding, I slipped the phone back into my pocket, but I didn’t power it down. Who knew if I would need it in a few minutes?
“Tell me about these people.”
“I don’t know much. They kidnapped me from my house. Just busted down the door in the middle of the night and snatched me from my bed. I was ordered to follow directions and bring you to this address.”
She pointed to a crumpled piece of paper with scribbled words and an address that seemed to lead to nowhere.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No, but I was threatened. If I didn’t cooperate, they were going to hurt all of us. I couldn’t allow that, babe.”