The car rolled to a slow stop. Angie counted the seconds. At twelve, a door opened. The car shifted as weight lifted from the front seat. The door slammed. Footsteps crunched against gravel. The passenger side door opened, then closed hard as if it had been kicked shut.
Twenty seconds. Fifty. A hundred. Angie had given up counting by the time she heard the key scrape in the lock of the trunk.
She was blinded by sunlight. Angie squeezed her eyes tight against the pain. The fresh air was like heaven, and she opened her mouth wide around the gag, flared her nostrils, desperate to breathe it in.
A shadow blocked the sun. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Michael was smiling down at her, the ragged scratch Jasmine had made down his cheek three days before looking like war paint.
“Have a nice nap?”
She strained against the ropes.
“Settle down,” he cautioned.
Angie barked out a “fuck you,” around the gag.
He unsheathed a long hunting knife, warning her, “Don’t try anything,” as he sliced through the ropes behind her back.
She moaned with relief as she stretched her legs as much as she could. Her hands were still tied behind her back, but at least she could move.
“Get out of the car.”
Angie struggled to sit up. Michael slid the knife back into the sheath and pulled out his service weapon. He pointed it at her head and she stopped moving.
“Slowly,” he ordered. “Don’t think for a minute I won’t shoot you.”
The rope bit into her wrists as she pressed her palms flat against the floor of the trunk. After several attempts, she managed to push herself up. She threw her legs over the side of the open trunk. Groaning, she forced herself out, tottering as her feet hit the ground, but somehow keeping her balance.
She stood up straight, looking around, trying to get her bearings.
“That was pretty impressive,” he said. “I’d forgotten how limber you are.
She wanted to rip his eyes out with her bare hands.
“Look around,” he told her. She saw rolling hills and snow-capped mountains looming behind a rustic-looking cabin. “You can scream all you want, but no one is going to hear you.”
He pulled down the gag and she gulped for air. Her nose felt broken, and when she spit on the ground, a clot of blood mixed with chunks of food from breakfast.
She screamed like a banshee.
Michael just stood there as she doubled over from the exertion, her lungs rattling in her chest. She yelled until there was no air left in her lungs, nothing in her mind except the sound of her own screams.
He asked, “Finished?”
She lunged for him and he brought up his knee smack into her chest. She buckled to the ground, gravel shooting sharp pains through her legs.
He pressed the Glock to the side of her head, put his face a few inches from hers. “Remember this, Angie: you’re second-string here.”
Jasmine. “Where is she?”
He yanked her up by the hair, dragging her toward the cabin. Angie struggled against him, pulling the ropes as she bumped against the stairs. “Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go, you fucker!”
He opened the front door and pushed her inside. “Get in there.” He grabbed her arm and threw her into the bathroom.
She fell into the tub, her head popping against the plastic wall. Michael still had his gun in one hand. With the other, he turned on the shower. Angie tried to stand, her legs slipping out from under her as the cold water beat down on her face.
“Take off your shorts,” Michael ordered. He squirted a glob of shampoo on her as she struggled to stand. “Get them off.”
Even if she’d wanted to, Angie couldn’t do anything with her hands tied behind her back. Michael seemed to realize this. He reached in and ripped open the top button of the cutoffs, then pulled down the zipper.
“Underwear, too,” he said. “Now.”
Her fingers were numb, the circulation cut off. Still, she managed to hook her thumbs in the waistband and pull down the shorts. She kicked them away with her feet.
“What did you do with the little girl?” she demanded, pushing down her panties. “What did you do to Jasmine?”
“Don’t worry.” Michael smiled, like he was enjoying a private joke. “She won’t talk.”
Angie lunged again, her head barreling into his gut. Michael fell back into the hall and the gun skipped across the wet floor. In one swift motion, he picked up Angie and threw her across the room. She landed awkwardly, reaching for the empty space behind her to break the fall. Her right hand twisted as her full weight pressed into the wrist and she heard a crack just as a lightning bolt of pain set her arm on fire.
“Get up,” Michael ordered.
Her hand was throbbing, needles running up and down her arm. She rolled to the side, sobbing. Oh, God, she had broken her wrist. What was she going to do? How was she going to get out of here?
She heard noises in the next room. Michael was gone. Where was the girl? What was he doing to Jasmine?
Angie pressed her face into the floor, forcing herself to her knees, then her feet. She leaned against the wall as her head started swimming, her vision blurring. She took a breath, braced herself, then moved away from the wall. Her wet underwear was wrapped around her ankle and she kicked it off as she limped into the outer room.
Michael was sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, foot bouncing up and down. The Glock was on the cushion beside him. He knew she couldn’t get to it in time.
“Sit down,” he said, indicating the rocking chair by the fireplace. Carefully, she sat on the edge of the seat, trying not to fall back.
“What were you doing in my house?”
Angie looked around the room, which was about ten feet by twenty, a living room with a small kitchen at the back. She remembered the mountains outside, the stark isolation of the cabin. He had been right: no one would hear her scream.
She asked, “What are you going to do?”
He had that same smirk on his face, that smile she had seen the night of Ken’s party and taken for flirting. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
Angie could not stop her bottom lip from trembling. Her hand was going numb, dull throbs of pain ringing around her wrist. The rope was wet from the shower, somehow made thicker and heavier by the water. The skin felt as if it had been burned away.
She looked at the gun on the couch.
“Don’t be stupid.”
Angie cleared her throat, feeling like she had swallowed cotton. “John told me everything,” she said, wondering how hard she could push before Michael broke her. No one knew where she was. Will was probably still interviewing John Shelley, trying to get to the truth. If John had learned anything in prison, he was keeping his mouth closed. It would be hours, maybe days, before Will even thought to look for her, and when he finally did, there was no way he would know about this tiny cabin in the hills.
Michael asked, “What did John tell you?”
“About Mary Alice,” Angie said, praying she’d got the girl’s name right. “He told me what really happened.”
Michael laughed, but he wasn’t smiling. “John doesn’t know what really happened.”
“He figured it out.”
“John’s too stupid to figure anything out.”
“I told everybody.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he warned. “I’m being nice now, but we both know what I’m capable of.”
