Chapter 7

Later that night, after she'd been 'blacked out' for several hours, Jaime's eyes were open but she found she could barely move at all. Michael sat on the bed beside her, patiently waiting while she struggled to focus...and then he smiled. ''I have a present for you,'' he told her. In his hand, he held a sheaf of papers. ''Do you know what these are? They're for your annulment; then we can really be together. Knock the legs right out from under the great Colonel Austin!''

Jaime couldn't stifle her sharp intake of breath. This she hadn't seen coming. Please God...anything but this! She wouldn't sign! She couldn't!

It was as if he was reading her mind! ''You will sign them, Jaime. You said you wanted me...now you're going to prove it!'' Michael slipped a pen into her hand and held the papers where she could reach them, with a writing board behind them. ''Sign, darling. You know this is what you want too!''

You want it too...you want it too...The words echoed in Jaime's mind and she couldn't push them away. Tears pearled in her eyes as her hand moved almost involuntarily to the paper. She tried desperately to think of a way out...

Jaime L. Sommers-Austin, she wrote. It was not the name she used legally...and she could only hope it would be enough to keep this from happening. Michael kissed her - deeply - before jabbing her with another needle and forcing her to black out once again.

Steve felt all of the breath leave his body like a sucker punch to the heart as he stared at what a messenger had just delivered. The young delivery person, nabbed by Hansen's team before he could leave the building, was unable to tell them anything useful. The envelope had gone swiftly from one messenger service to another, with the leg closest to wherever Michael was holding Jaime handled by someone unknown who couldn't be traced through a service at all...and couldn't be located. Yet again, he'd slipped through their fingers. Even Jack Hansen was becoming agitated now. No one had ever escaped from the NSB's Hole before and his agency's inability to come up with even the smallest lead was both infuriating and humbling for him.

Steve was inconsolable. He sat staring at the heinous papers in front of him on the table, with Mark on one side of him and Oscar on the other...and he was struck totally dumb. He saw her signature - shaky but definitely Jaime's handwriting - and the empty line below it that awaited his own autograph. Of course, he wouldn't sign (or file) but the cruel act nearly leveled Steve emotionally. Michael had to be doing terrible things to Jaime - to her mind- to get her to agree to this.

What was happening to her, at that very moment? Steve couldn't bear to think about it!

Michael was going on virtually no sleep - but in his excitement, rest was the furthest thing from his mind. When Jaime began to stir, he slid her over to one edge of the bed and climbed in next to her with his shirt off, encircling her body with his arms so he'd be the first thing she saw (and felt) as she returned to consciousness. She woke with a start, her heart pounding with fear when she saw him beside her, only partially dressed. (Had they...?)

''You were wonderful, Darling,'' he told her with a sultry, seductive smile. ''Well worth waiting for.''

Noooo...! In her heart, Jaime knew nothing had happened. Even if she'd been unconscious - or totally blacked out - she would feel that something like that had been done to her. (Besides, she was still fully dressed.) It simply hadn't happened; Michael was only playing with her mind and her emotions...but it was working. She was disoriented...confused...and not just because of the shots. Jaime began taking stock of her body - and found that she was able to move again, albeit only weakly. She had to maintain at least some semblance of control; her life (and now her sanity too) depended on it! She concentrated as hard as she could on what she remembered of her own plan to defeat him. The thought of what she was about to do nauseated her but she leaned toward him as if savoring his embrace.

''I can feel...how good it was,'' she told him. By fate, Providence or simply dumb luck, she was on the side of the bed she needed to be on. Bracing herself not to gag, she laid on her back in Michael's arms, turning her head to kiss him...holding his lips with her own and keeping his full attention focused on that as her free arm lolled over the side of the bed and began to search. Her fingers brushed against what felt like a tiny remote, with a single switch...and she flipped it. Then Jaime turned onto her side, fully facing Michael as she kissed him once more.

''You really went through a lot to get us here, didn't you?'' she began.

Steve's attention was riveted to the speaker - and the sound of his wife's voice. It was the first time a transmission had come through that didn't appear to have been initiated by Michael. In his heart, Steve knew that this was it. This was Jaime's attempt to outwit Michael - to beat him at his own game. If she succeeded, maybe she'd be able to escape - or at least let them know where she was. If she failed - if Michael caught on to what she was doing - he was likely to kill her.