On Borrowed Time by Jenn McKinlay

throwing her hands up in the air. “Obviously, that was Jack. What did he say? What’s going on? Who was that woman?”
    Lindsey looked from Beth to Sully and back. What could she say? Could she say anything? The woman on the phone hadn’t said she couldn’t tell her friends. That seemed like a technicality, but still.
    She slowly replaced the receiver, giving herself a second to think. She didn’t want to put Beth in jeopardy by telling her about Jack being kidnapped. Then again, Beth had already seen the woman at the Anchor, and Lindsey didn’t want Beth to stumble into something she shouldn’t by not knowing what was going on.
Gah!
This was impossible. She decided to go with her gut.
    â€œJack was kidnapped,” she said. Whether he and the woman were lovers or not, the woman had taken him forcibly, and as far as Lindsey was concerned, that was kidnapping.
    Beth gasped but Sully didn’t even flicker an eyelash, which told her more than words that he had suspected as much. It also told her that he had expected her to let Beth into the loop and that he would have done the same, which made her feel better about her choice.
    â€œBut he was just here, and he went with that woman. Oh, is she the kidnapper?” Beth asked. “What does she want? Is she a stalker?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Lindsey said. The fight went out of her, and she slid into a nearby padded chair, feeling as if she could not be upright for one more second.
    Beth took the seat opposite her while Sully retrieved her coffee cup and handed it to her before taking the seat beside her.
    â€œWhat did she say exactly?” Sully asked.
    Lindsey glanced at him. How did he know she’d spoken to the woman?
    â€œWhen you yelled, I figured she took the phone from Jack once he knew you were safe,” he explained. “Probably he was refusing to cooperate until he knew you weren’t hurt in the explosion.”
    â€œExplosion?” Beth cried. “Is that why you brought that charred wreck in? It exploded?”
    â€œWe were hoping to turn it over to the police,” Lindsey said. “That can’t happen now.”
    Sully nodded as if he expected as much. Beth shoved her hands into her short spiky black hair as if yanking on her follicles would make all of this clearer.
    â€œExplain,” she ordered. She let go of her hair. “From the very beginning.”
    Lindsey glanced at Sully. Even he didn’t know the very beginning—that Jack had been at the library before the dead guy showed up. Oh, well, there was no turning back now.
    She took a long sip from her coffee and started at the very beginning with finding Jack in the crafternoon room and cataloged the day’s events all the way through to the phone call. No one said anything when she was finished. She didn’t know if she’d offended them by not telling them about her first contact with Jack or if they were just dazed by the info dump she had unloaded onto them.
    â€œJack’s in big trouble, isn’t he?” Beth asked.
    â€œI’m afraid so,” Lindsey said.
    â€œWe have to help him,” Beth said.
    â€œWe can’t go to the police,” Lindsey said. Sully looked like he was going to protest, but she cut him off. “I won’t put him at risk.”
    â€œNoted,” Sully said. “What I was going to suggest was that we hire an independent outfit to check out the wreckage, maybe an investigator with an insurance agency. They wouldn’t be ‘the authorities,’ but they might be able to give us a lead.”
    â€œThat’s brilliant,” Lindsey said. Sully gave her a small smile, and she was suddenly very glad she had told them everything. She would have hated to try to figure this out alone.
    â€œI’ll call some of my old Navy contacts and see what they suggest,” he said.
    â€œWhat should we do in the meantime?” Beth