Page 73 of Uncharted Desires
The cab came to a stop as security swarmed the car, yelling at the driver. She had no idea what they were saying, and she didn’t care. Kat jumped out of the cab, but a security guard stopped her, pulling her back and yelling at her in Indonesian.
“No! Let me go!” Kat pulled on his arm to get free. She was not going to be this close and fail to save West.
“Stacy!”
Stacy looked up from her call, finally noticing the chaos going on around her.
“Tell them who I am,” Kat pleaded as she struggled to get free from the men with very large automatic weapons.
Stacy walked over and flashed her press badge. “Let her go. She’s with me.”
The guard nodded and let go of Kat’s already injured arms, which would have deep bruises on them come tomorrow.
“Thanks, Stacy. Where’s West?” she asked breathlessly.
Stacy cocked her head to the side and looked Kat up and down. “He just left.”
“No.” Kat felt her legs faltering beneath her as she sank to the curb.
“This is a two-thousand-dollar pantsuit, or I’d join you down there, honey. He’s headed back to you. What’s wrong?”
Kat couldn’t breathe. She tried to inhale, but nothing would come in. She felt her lungs shriveling up in her chest. This was what it felt like to die by asphyxiation. She couldn’t get the words out. West was going to die. She couldn’t say them.
“His car . . .” she spat out. “They . . . messed . . . with . . . his . . . car . . .”
Stacy stepped off the curb and squatted down, lifting Kat’s head. “What are you talking about?”
That’s when Kat noticed it in Stacy’s hand. Her phone! A freaking phone. Kat had been so long without one, she forgot she could call West.
She pointed at Stacy’s phone. “Call West!”
Without another word, Stacy dialed West and handed Kat the phone.
It rang two . . . three . . . four times and Kat panicked. He wasn’t going to answer.
“What now, Stace?” His deep, calming voice rang through the earpiece, and Kat felt instantly calmer.
“West!”
“Kat? Is that . . . what are you doing with Stacy?”
“Just don’t ask questions, okay? You need to get out of your car now.”
“Huh? Why?”
“West, I said don’t ask questions. Just do it! Get out!”
“I can’t. We’re just getting on the freeway . . .”
“West, now!”
Kat waited for a reply but didn’t hear one. The phone crackled. “West? West? Oh my god, West!”
The phone cut off, and Kat had to stop herself from throwing someone else’s phone across the Jakarta Globe’s parking garage.
Before Kat could think of her next move, a loud boom echoed through the city block.
Twenty One