Page 23 of Baby Take Me Home

I didn’t bother telling him I could get out of the car by myself because, at that moment, I wasn’t sure I could. When I’d agreed to TJ’s terms, I’d been consumed with anger at him for hiding the truth from me and besieged by the need to avenge Aiden’s death. The man who had kidnapped us and the people he worked for were pure evil, and I believed that surviving that ordeal had left me with a sacred duty to see justice done.

But now, in pursuit of that information, I’d promised to walk away from my family, my career, my entire life, and into the Witness Protection Program.

“I can’t breathe.” I clawed at my throat, which was closing. I knew it was a panic attack and told myself that over and over, but my throat didn’t relax and I couldn’t catch my breath.

“TJ, carry her over here!” the woman called.

TJ pulled me out of the car and heaved me over his shoulder like I was a rag doll. That did nothing to ease my panic, but it did make quick work of getting me to the van. The doctor and the hacker rolled a gurney out from under IT desks and set it in the middle of the back of the van. TJ laid me down on it. Seconds later, I was breathing through an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth.

“Slow, even breaths,” the doctor told me. She strapped something onto my wrist. “It’s a high-tech watch that allows me to monitor your vital signs without a lot of equipment.”

Already, my chest and throat were relaxing. I focused on breathing slowly like she’d told me to do, even though I wanted to suck in quick breaths.

“Ashlee, do you remember having an appendectomy when you were 17?” she asked.

I opened my eyes and stared up at her. How did she know that? Then I remembered the contract on TJ’s phone that I’d signed with my thumbprint, laying out the tentative agreement between the United States Government and me. I had given them permission to access, among other personal data, my medical records.

“Ashlee,” the doctor said again, “do you remember that surgery?”

I nodded.

She held up a small vial with clear liquid and stuck a syringe into it. “Shortly before they wheeled you into the OR, they gave you a dose of Midazolam. Do you remember that?”

Was she planning to pokemewith that syringe? I shook my head and wriggled to the opposite side of the gurney.

“Ashlee, I need you to calm down.” The voice of calm, of peace, of safety.

I turned my head toward TJ.

“Listen to me, take slower breaths,” he said. “And let Dr. Bond give you this shot. It’s not the sedative we gave you Saturday. I promise.”You’re safe, I promise. Trust me.

There was a prick in my arm.

“You’re going to be fine,” Dr. Bond said. “This is the same anti-anxiety medication you were given before your surgery. Perfectly safe, you didn’t have any negative outcomes from it, and you’re going to feel better in just a minute.”

She was right. My throat and chest eased more. My arms and legs relaxed. I was calm and content.

TJ held out an eye mask. “This is protocol. I’m sorry. If there were any other way...”

I tensed but quickly relaxed as the drug continued to work its magic. I closed my eyes. The mask put gentle pressure on my eyelids. My panic attack had passed. I was safe. I was calm. Planning always put me in a meditative state, so I ran over the details I’d already begun hashing out with TJ and some I hadn’t.

Today, I was going to learn the truth. Over the next few weeks, I was going to spend as much time with my family and friends as I could without arousing their suspicions. When I couldn’t be with them, I was going to devote some time to getting to know TJ Russo better. If only we’d met sooner or in a different place in our lives, maybe we could have...

There was no use in dwelling on what could have been. Although, given the secret life he lived, maybe I could see him again after I assumed my new identity. Maybe I could be another secret he carried and I could maintain one tenuous connection to my twenty-nine previous years.

While I was still here, while I was still me, I was going to use the information from TJ’s agency to write an exposé on the group Aiden had been researching, the shadowy and dangerous organization I was sure was behind our kidnapping. It would be the high note and the swan song of my career all in one fell swoop. And before it even hit the news wires, Ashlee Armand would disappear from the face of the earth.

Now that my body was relaxed and the adrenaline had abated, a wave of harsh reality washed through my mind. I was about to throw away the life I loved. My family, my creative and whimsical mother who was head chef at a Michelin three-star restaurant, my funny and charming father, who was a retired race-car driver and NASCAR-team owner, my smart and loving sister, who was a contract lawyer with a great marriage and twin girls.

And my nieces, just two years old. We had plans together, those girls and I, even if they were too young to understand just yet. I was going to be their doting aunt, their refuge when they were teenagers, their confidantes when their parents weren’t cool enough to understand, and their loudest cheerleader as they grew into women and made their life choices.

I couldn’t leave them. Words were my life and livelihood, but I had no idea how to say goodbye.

I tried to raise the alarm and to renege on the deal I’d made, but my limbs were heavy and my speech was obstructed by the oxygen mask. I reached for TJ. When he took my hand between his, my fingers were too weak to grasp his. The van jostled. We were moving, driving toward his agency’s headquarters where my briefing would begin.

I wanted out, out of the van, out of the agreement, out of the future I’d naively agreed to live. But it was too late. There was no way to stop the literal moving van or metaphorical barreling train that was about to derail my life.

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