Captive Star by Nora Roberts

toward the back, but her mind was racing. Ten minutes, she calculated. That was all she needed, to get out, get to the phone booth she'd seen outside and get through to Bailey.
    She closed the door of the ladies' room at her back, scanned the woman in black spandex primping in the mirror, then grinned at the small casement window set high in the wall.
    "Hey, give me a leg up."
    The woman perfected a second coat of blood-red lipstick. "A what?"
    "Come on, be a pal." M.J. hooked a hand on the narrow sill. "Give me a boost, will you?"
    Taking her maddening time, the woman slid the top back on her tube of lipstick.
    "Bad date?"
    "The worst."
    "I know the feeling." She tottered over on icepick heels. "Do you really think you can squeeze through that? You're skinny, but it'll be a tight fit."
    "I'll make it."
    The woman shrugged, exuded a puff of too-sweet designer-knockoff perfume and cupped her hands. "Whatever you say."
    M.J. bounced a foot in the makeshift stirrup, then boosted herself up until she had her arms hooked on the sill. A quick wriggle and she was chest-high. "Just another little push."
    "No problem." Getting into the spirit, the woman set both hands on M.J.'s bottom and shoved. "Sorry," she said when M.J. cracked her head on the window and swore.
    "It's okay. Thanks." She wiggled, grunted, twisted and forced herself through the opening. Head, then shoulders. Taking a quick breath, trying not to imagine herself remaining corked in the window, she muscled her way through with only a quick rip of denim.
    "Good for you, honey."
    M.J. stayed on her hands and knees long enough to shoot her assistant a quick grin. Then she was off and running. She dug in her pocket as she went for the quarter habitually carried there.
    She could hear her mother's voice. Never leave the house without money for a phone call in your pocket. You never know when you'll need it.

    "Thanks, Ma," she murmured, and reached the phone booth at a dead run. "Be there, be there," she whispered, plugging in the coin, stabbing numbers.
    She heard Bailey's calm, cool voice answer on the second ring and swore as she recognized the recorded message.
    "Where are you, where are you?" She clamped down on panic, took a breath.
    "Bailey, listen up," she began, the instant after the beep. "I don't know what the hell's going on, but we're in trouble. Don't stay there, he may come back.
    I'm in a phone booth outside some dive near—"
    "Damn idiot." Jack reached in, grabbed her arm.
    "Hands off, you son of a bitch. Bailey—" But he'd already disconnected her.
    Using the confines of the booth to his advantage, he twisted her around and clamped the cuffs on so that her arms were secured. Then he simply lifted her up and tossed her over his shoulder.
    He let her rant, let her kick, and had her dumped back into the car before a single Good Samaritan could take interest. Her threats and promises bounced off him as he peeled away from the curb and shot down side streets.
    "So much for trust." And where there wasn't trust, he thought, there had to be proof. Cautious, he doubled back, scouting the area until he found a narrow alley half a block from the phone booth. He backed in, shut off the lights and engine.
    Reaching over, he vised a hand around the back of her neck, pulled her face close. "You want to see where your phone call would have gotten us? Just sit tight."
    "Take your hands off me."
    "At the moment, having my hands on you is the least of my concerns. Just be quiet. And wait for it."
    When his grip loosened, she jerked back. "Wait for what?"
    "It shouldn't take much longer." And, brooding into the dark, he watched the street.
    It took less than five minutes. By his count, a little more than fifteen since her call. The van crept up to the curb. Two men got out.
    "Recognize them?"
    Of course she did. She'd seen them only that morning. One of them had broken in her door. The other had shot at her. With a quick tremor of reaction, she shut her eyes. They'd traced