He tried again to calm himself, catching his breath, rolling his neck and shoulders through the burgeoning pangs of muscle cramps.
There was a way out of this. Somehow. He just needed to man up and figure it out. Field experience in instructional ministry had taught him how to associate with people, how to listen to them, and guide them through tough situations. He would concentrate his attention on observing what she was hiding and hearing what wasn’t being said. He would study her face and learn her expressions. Once he discovered the heart of her, he would offer advice, befriend her, discover her strengths and weaknesses, and predict her next moves.
What if she injured him? Raped him? What were his limits? How much could he endure before he despised her so much he lost himself in hate?
Adrenaline burned through his veins. If he could survive the next few hours or days, he could survive ten weeks. Maintaining composure was paramount.
A sudden ringing sound pierced the silence. It was a consistent lonely tone, like the lingering bong of a brass bell. Was it some kind of tinnitus?
He rolled his head side-to-side, and the frequency seemed to ripple around his ears. It was definitely streaming through the headphones. The volume wasn’t elevated enough to hurt. Just one loud, relentless blare.
Minutes passed, and the sound continued. His fingers tingled, as did the skin around his lips. Panic and irritation robbed his ability to catch his breath. He yawned over and over, popping his ears.
No change in frequency. No relief. He buckled down, fought the tremors in his body and the furor of emotions pushing against the backs of his eyes.
“Make it stop!” The scream shredded his vocal chords. “Please, stop.”
He counted to one thousand. He couldn’t calm his heart.
When would it end? He counted to five thousand.
All that existed was the certainty in one demanding tonality. He couldn’t focus.
Stop, stop, stop.
“Please...Please turn if off...Stop!”
His throat scraped, his shrieks unraveling his hold on his mind.
CHAPTER 7
Liv found Van downstairs in the sitting room, reclined in the armchair, a lit cigarette drooping from his lips. She stiffened as he patted his knee in invitation, his eyes twin sparks of silver in the glow of his phone, the room’s only light.
The way he looked at her chilled her skin, even as his smoke-curled smile made her heart ache for things he could never give.
Spine steeled against the brutal beauty of his face, she put one sneaker before the other, plucked the cig from his mouth, and perched on his knee. “Ready?”
Moving his arms around her waist, he rested his chin on her shoulder and reached for the device. “Been ready since the day I met you.”
Her skin itched where his breath touched her cheek, where his leg pressed against her ass, where his arms brushed her hips. He was both an infectious rash and a soothing touch.
She finished the final drag on the cigarette and squashed it in the ashtray, eyes on the blank screen.
He launched their e-mail account, the inbox empty. Empty for nine weeks. She stared at it, willing it to beep, her exhale trapped in her chest.
A tap on the screen made the phone call. Another tap, and he switched it to speaker mode, his free arm draped over her thigh. The call connected on the first ring.
“Any problems?” Crisp and deep, the voice dragged a shudder from her lungs.
“No, sir,” she and Van said in chorus.
The inbox dinged, announcing a new message with an attached file.
“The recording is five minutes old,” Mr. E said, “and two minutes long. I’ll wait.”
Van clicked on the video file and leaned back. She bent toward it, where it perched in his outstretched hand.
On the screen, a woman in her late-forties sat at a table in a kitchen that had become familiar from this camera angle. Wisps of gray curled through her short brown hair, her hands folded around the mug she stared into. If she glanced up, her eyes would be a deep warm brown, set in the determined expression of a woman who had birthed a child on the heels of an abusive relationship. A woman whose passion for skydiving came second to her love for her only child. The woman who said that anyone could fall; the skill was in landing.
When she’d learned her missing daughter’s remains had been found in an abandoned house, she’d cried for weeks as Liv watched through video footage from her attic prison. But Mom knew how to land. A few weeks before Liv’s one-year incarceration as a slave ended, Mom moved on to a new job and a new home.
The ache to find that kitchen in the video festered inside her. While Liv had the freedom to run errands, scout for new victims, and—not often enough—skydive, her movements were monitored. With anxious discretion, she slipped in and out of public libraries, hunting the web for Jill Reed the skydiving instructor, the pilot, the grieving mother. There were too many skydiving schools, too many Jill Reeds.
She scrutinized Mom’s sleeveless shirt. Tepid climate in October? Could’ve been anywhere along the Gulf. Were the creases in her hair from long hours beneath a skydiving helmet? Or a ponytail holder, pulled back for any job? The print on the newspaper at her elbow was too small to read, and the blinds were closed on the window. No new clues, every recorded clip too meticulously selected before delivery.
The sudden impulse to demand her mother’s location from Mr. E cramped her gut and heated her face. Last time she did that, he slapped her with his two-week version of house arrest. So she crushed her reckless notion behind pinned lips and traced a fingernail over the beloved image on the screen.
She earned three video sessions per slave. One on the evening of the capture. One after a successful first meeting between buyer and slave. And one when she made the final delivery
