She shrugged. “I know you’ve got other things to do.”
“I do,” he said cheerfully. “But, since we already know each other,” he said, “I’m on babysitting duty.”
At that, she didn’t know if she would laugh or cry. Thankfully laughter won out. “Wow,” she said. “It’s been a long time since anyone suggested I had to be babysat.”
“Maybe,” he said, with a smile, “but, in this instance, it’s all good.”
She nodded slowly. “Thank you.”
He shook his head. “You’ll have to stop thanking me. I’m just doing my job, you know?”
“Well, that’s a little hard to do,” she said, “and I am very grateful for all you’ve done, job or not.”
“That sounds even worse,” he said, with a head shake.
She glared at him. “That’s not fair.”
“No,” he said, “but we’ll have you just sit here and relax, until the doctor comes back anyway.”
She nodded. “You think it’d be okay if I slept a bit?”
“That would be better still,” he said in surprise. “It would help clear your bloodstream of whatever vestiges of the drugs are still there. The fact is, you got most of it out just a moment ago, so that’ll help your recovery.”
She nodded, then curled up on the bed at his side, and closed her eyes. “You’ll make sure nobody comes after me, right?” she said, her eyes popping open.
“Yes,” he said reassuringly. “I promise I’ll stay here and make sure nobody kidnaps you.”
Nodding, she sagged back onto the bed. Within a matter of minutes, she was asleep.
He sat here, wondering how long it would take her to sleep on her own and to not worry about being kidnaped. He was grateful they’d found her when they had because he didn’t want to imagine just what this one gunman had in mind, but it wouldn’t have been good for her. He looked up as Hudson walked in and nodded.
“I found it,” Hudson said and set it on the table.
Baylor looked at it and said, “I remember her having a bottle of water, but I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Only a little bit is gone,” he said, as he held it up. “So I don’t think she got very much of it. I’ll go get it analyzed.” Immediately he turned and walked out.
Baylor sank back down, pulled up his phone, and quickly sent off a report, updating Mason and the rest of the team with what had happened. Mason called him minutes later.
“The water was drugged?”
“Yeah, looks like it. We’ll know for certain here pretty soon. I’m not sure, but it sounds like some arguments were had between the guards. One apparently wanted her for himself.”
“Great,” Mason said. “So are you thinking that drugging her was his plan to get her out of there?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” he said. “Also she confirmed that she wasn’t supposed to be on the trip at all. Only because of a last-minute plea from her mother did she go along.”
“That’s interesting,” Mason said.
“Do we have an update on the father’s condition?”
“I’m supposed to get one here in the next little bit,” Mason said.
“Somebody needs to check the mother too. Apparently, although her mother said it was a holiday because she was done with her chemo, Gizella didn’t seem to think her mother was telling the truth on that.”
“Okay, I’ll do that too,” Mason said. “I’ll check back in ten.”
And, with that, Baylor hung up and settled back to wait for Gizella to wake up. The doctor came in once or twice, checking on her and then always left again. That was good news in itself because they couldn’t be that worried if they walked away, but, at the same time, Baylor just wanted to get her out of here. He had only met her briefly, that one night when they had sat in the corner and had talked for hours. He would be leaving the next morning, and she had been heading off somewhere too, but he couldn’t even remember where that was. He thought she was going on a holiday.
They’d connected well that evening, and that had been it. They hadn’t slept together or even spent more than that one evening together, but he had recognized her as soon as he’d seen her, although he hadn’t really recognized her name or the relationship to her father. That didn’t say much about him and how little he remembered her. But, as soon as he’d seen her, he remembered her just fine. She’d been funny, happy-go-lucky, and lighthearted.
He loved that. She hadn’t been a party girl, like the rest of the group, but she’d been so much more. Maybe just fun was the word he was looking for, he didn’t know, but they definitely had a connection, and he had planned on calling her later when he got back to base, but, even then, he never did.
It had never happened, and that was at least four or five years ago. It was definitely before her mother’s bout with breast cancer, which had to have been hard on the whole family. Well, maybe not so much on Dad. Baylor wondered about the man’s lack of morality when it came to wedding vows. So many guys just didn’t think they mattered. And, hell, it wasn’t just men. It was people in general who didn’t think their vows mattered.
They’d find something wrong in the marriage itself, and everything else would justify their decision to walk away and to try something else on for size. Or just to have a little fun with someone else and to bring some joy back into their lives, instead of solving the problem at hand. He never understood it himself. He was always a one-person-at-a-time kind of guy, and, if the relationship was done, it was done—only done when he knew there was no way to save it. He didn’t go into relationships easily because of that.
Unlike a lot of his friends, who seemed to try on girls for size until they found one that they liked, but
