I’d seen him at the welcome when he first joined the firm. Our eyes met across the apricot pastries and lemon brioche and he smiled. He looked vulnerable, standing there in his new suit, collar tight around his neck, as his supervising partner introduced him to everyone. I later found out that blue tie with the tiny maroon hexagons was a gift from his sister.
He made love like a Greek god, would put his heart and soul into it, gaze into my eyes with an intensity that reminded me of glass in the sun. Afterward, he would fold me up in his arms like a father.
We exchanged “I love yous” on a rare weekend away. One of the partners, Chip Emmerson, gave us the keys to his vacation house in the Hamptons, which was actually more mansion than summer house. Matthew and I had gone from room to room, astonished at the scale of the place, marveling at the furnishings, Hellman-Chang everything. Looking up at the Rothko hanging above the Italian marble staircase, Matthew had uttered, “God, one day we could live like this.”
We made love in the pool house because the main residence was too overwhelming. Lying there on the cotton blanket in the afterglow, I murmured into his shoulder—
“Why don’t you come with me?”
“Where?”
“To do the Coastal.”
“I would follow you to the ends of the earth, you know that,” he said.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Let’s do it,” he said.
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
The weekend was cut short when Chip Emmerson arrived unannounced, and he and Matthew spent the rest of the weekend discussing futures and the downfall of the latest Madoffesque scheme, but that was okay because Matthew had said yes.
4
The shudder of the car wakes me. My brain is syrup. My eyelids lead. I inch them open. There’s something on my face, a cloth, tied at the back of my head, my hair caught in the knot. The cloth covers my entire face like a mask, and is ripped open around my lips. I can smell its newness, the plastic sheath it had lived in when it sat on a shelf in some Walmart or Target. It could be a dish cloth or bandanna or pillow case. Whatever it is, it’s cheap and nasty and like sandpaper against my skin.
I’m lying on my side in the backseat of a car, hands tied behind my back. They are secured so tight I can feel my pulse thump from one wrist to the next. My feet are tied, too, the knobs of my ankles jammed together.
The fabric of the mask is so poorly constructed that when I turn my head the right way I can see through the open weave. In the driver’s seat there’s a man. He sits on a wood-beaded seat cover, hand draped over the steering wheel, eyes on the highway. We are moving along asphalt, smooth and undulating. I hear a car whoosh by, the back draft of a big rig, the drone of a motorcycle.
Something catches my eye. Hanging from the rearview is a small Kermit the Frog. Like you would get on a key chain, made of cloth, with matchstick-thin gangly legs and splayed out feet. I watch Kermit dangle there, lobbing from side to side, and begin to think I must be trapped in some crazy dream, that I’ve been slipped acid in a club, or had some type of seizure.
The cogs of my mind turn slowly, straining to put things together. The man looks familiar. I have seen him before. But it’s so hard to think. Then it comes to me. The gas station. The moonboot. The flat tire. I nearly laugh out loud because this must be some kind of joke. A prank of epic proportions. He was so nice, so ordinary, there can be no other explanation.
But what’s that on my lips? Blood? And what else, Amelia? The ties and the mask? It comes back in a rush, being rendered unconscious and thrown into the trunk of his car.
“What do you want? Why are you doing this?” I say, surprised by the fact that I’m slurring. “You have to let me go.”
He shoots a look over his shoulder, lifts his brass-rimmed aviators, then pulls sharply to the side of the road. Somewhere in my fogged up head I know I’ve screwed up.
He opens the door and gets out and I hear the slow, steady crunch of his boots as he circles the car. He’s watching me, I can feel it. He’s outside the left rear window, his body blocking the light.
A car passes and after it’s gone, he opens the door and pauses again. He reaches inside and touches the top of my head. His whole hand settles there, like a human skull cap, and I do my best not to scream.
I think that maybe I should say something—If you let me go now, I won’t tell anybody. I don’t know who you are so I’ll never be able to identify you. My father is a law enforcement officer (he isn’t) and he’ll be out looking for me as we speak so give this up before you make matters worse for yourself.
“I have money,” I say.
“Do you?”
“You can have all of it if you let me go.”
But it doesn’t matter because here he comes with a rag and the chloroform or whatever it is, leaning in, unhurried, putting his knee on the seat, holding the rag over the gash where my mouth is, and before I know it I’m gone again.
5
It’s dark when I wake. My head is pounding. And the thirst, the thirst is unbearable. The car’s not moving and I’m alone inside it. I angle my head and find a strip of light, unnatural and fluorescent. The smell and noise of gasoline shuddering into the tank.
Outside, voices. Faraway and indistinct. I lift my head. Through the tiny squares of cloth, I see him, hands on his hips, talking, unhurried, to the guy at the adjoining pump. The gasoline stops chugging and he removes the fuel dispenser, shuts the flap with a snap, and goes inside to pay.
Even in my groggy, drugged up state, I know I should do something, that this may be my one and only chance. Then it dawns on me that he has made a mistake. Despite Moonboot’s plan to incapacitate me with zip ties and blindfolds, he’s forgotten the gag. So I shout. I shout as loud as I can.
“Help! Somebody help!” I kick the door with my feet. I’m overjoyed because it’s thunderous—the banging, my voice. Someone will hear for sure. “Help! I’m in here! My name is Amelia Kellaway and I’ve been kidnapped! Call the police!”
The door flies open. Oh, thank God.
“I’ve been kidnapped,” I say breathlessly, “from a gas station on the Oregon-California border. You’ve got to help me.”
I try to sit up but am shoved back down again. My head is pinned to the seat.
“Well, would you look at that—a fighter.”
It can’t be. There are people here. They have to come. They have to see what’s happening to me.
Before I can yell again, something is forced into my mouth, and a blanket, heavy with the fresh scent of Ultra Tide, is pulled up over my head. I struggle against my bindings, try to make noise, but it’s no use. Moonboot simply shuts the door and drives away.
*
The next time I stir I’ve wet myself. I can smell it. Not strong but there. My shorts and underwear stick to my skin. It’s pitch black and I can’t see a thing through the tiny squares. It’s impossibly still and I wonder if I’ve been moved someplace else, a basement, an attic, a shed in the woods.
I listen hard for clues. Night crickets. The lone hoot of an owl. The swish of tall grass. A faint, cool breeze through an open window. I deduce I’m still in the backseat of the car. Moonboot is sleeping. I can hear the curl of his breath. He’s reclined his seat all the way back and it’s pushing against my lower legs.