My heart was immediately in my throat. I was sure it was the same storage facility I had been at a month earlier on the outskirts of Merlot. I quickly dialed the number and waited while it rang.
“Nixon’s storage,” a said.
“Hi, I am wondering if you can tell me if there a storage unit registered to the name of Becca Scott or a Jace Taylor?”
“I’m sorry, unfortunately, due to client confidentiality, I cannot give out that information.”
Irritated, I hung up the phone and made a tight fist. Then I thought back to the strange encounter I’d had there. There had been something about the guy I’d dealt with that hadn’t sat right.
Deliberating no more, I immediately dialed Chris’s number and told him what I’d found and asked him to meet me over at the shop.
Becca
My head pounded as I struggled to open my eyes. I had no idea where I was; everything was dark. I tried to move my arm to wipe at my eyes. Immediately, I felt something bite into my wrists, stopping me from trying to move my arm. A loud bang came from somewhere close by. I froze and listened hard. I heard someone swear under their breath.
Panic really set in. I struggled to try to bring my arms around, but again, something dug into my wrists sharply, causing me to cry a little. They were tied together. I tried to move my feet, but the same thing happened as something sharp seared its way into my skin around my ankles.
Another loud bang caused me to jump. I lay there breathing hard, doing my best not to panic, when I felt someone put their hands on my ankles and pull me roughly into a sitting position. Instantly, I felt pain shooting up my back, and I got dizzy. I could feel myself falling backwards, but instead of letting me fall, I felt someone grab my arm, holding me up. The bright light ripped through my eyes as they ripped the blindfold away. I closed my eyes tightly as a sharp pain ran through my head.
“Open your eyes,” the deep voice drawled.
I tried again to allow my eyes to adjust, finally doing my best to blink a little, but I could barely see. I blinked once, twice, and then a dark silhouette of a man stood in my view. I couldn’t make out who it was as my eyes still hadn’t adjusted yet. I kept blinking, finally realizing that at the moment he was paying no attention to me. He disappeared only to reappear once again, carrying something that he sat down on a wooden table. I blinked hard, my vision returning more to normal, and I looked around. I recognized nothing and had no idea where I was. I once again struggled to move but couldn’t. The anxiety building in my chest was unbearable, and I could hardly breathe. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry, and then I realized that not only did I have tape over my mouth, but someone had shoved something in it—a rag perhaps. Once again, I tried to pull my hands to the front to rip the tape off so I could scream, but again something bit sharply into my wrists, this time causing my eyes to water.
I rested against a wall, looking around, and I realized I was sitting in the back of some vehicle. Another loud bang came from somewhere out of my line of view, and then the same man stepped into view and attached a wire to something.
The man turned and looked my way. His face was covered with a balaclava. My heart rate increased as he took a couple of steps towards me and picked me up as if I were nothing, flinging me over his shoulder. The pain in my head and back made the room spin, and I had to close my eyes to keep from throwing up. I was roughly thrown down into a chair and faced a tall man. He said nothing, just walked across the room to a bench and stood with his back to me.
I swallowed hard; my throat was now so dry it hurt. I tried to remember how I had gotten here. I remembered the bomb threat being forced to leave my office, people running in every direction when one of my coworkers grabbed me and led me towards the stairwell. I remembered calling Grant and falling behind everyone else. Oh my God, I was supposed to meet Grant. I imagined him waiting for me, panicking when I didn’t show up. Then I remembered being grabbed me from behind as I opened the door to the back parking lot, and everything went black. An arm around my neck and a sharp blow to the head was the last thing I remembered.
I looked over at the tall, masked man and watched as he turned slowly to face me. He stood there for a moment, his eyes running over me, and then he took a step forward.
“So, you’re finally awake. I didn’t even hit you that hard,” he said, running his forefinger down my cheek.
Chills ran through my body. I knew that voice anywhere. He stepped forward and roughly ripped the tape off my face, pulling the rag that had been shoved into my mouth with it. A large gasp of air caused me to cough. I tried to speak, but my throat was so dry it only made me cough more.
He stood there, towering over me, laughing.
“Jace?” my hoarse voice finally rang out.
“Who the fuck you think it is?” he said, pulling the balaclava over his head.
I glanced around the room. It had no windows but was full of boxes and furniture. A white, windowless van sat parked across from me, the back door open. I looked to the large metal roller door, and a chill ran through me. “Where are we?”
“Never mind where we are.”
Fear ran through me and I looked around, noticing a camera up in the room’s corner we were in.
He pulled a chair around and straddled it, sitting down in front of me. He studied me for a moment before he followed my line of view up to the camera. He turned and looked back at me, laughing. “Oh, princess, you think I am that stupid? Those have been deactivated. Your boyfriend won’t be able to come and save you.” He chuckled.
Alarm bells rang out in my head. Did he know Grant?
“What...what do you want?”
“You, you’re what I want, but not in the way you might think.” A slow smile spread across his lips, and I saw a glimmer in his eye I wished I hadn’t seen.
“What?” I couldn’t help but let out a sob. His words only made me cry more.
“Stop your crying, you cheating bitch.” He stood up and paced in front of me for a couple of seconds before sitting back down.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“What are you going to do to me?” he mocked, then turned around and paced in front of me for a couple of seconds then turned back to me. “Well, after I have my way with you, which I will have, by the way, I’m going to kill you. I want your brother to suffer. To suffer the way I did when he killed my brother.”
“No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head, my eyes filling with tears.
Jace stood up and threw the chair he’d been sitting on across the room, the sound of it smashing into a pile of stuff causing me to jump. “ENOUGH!” he screamed, walking to me and picking me up, throwing me over his shoulder.
I felt myself go flying, and then I landed on my back onto something soft. I looked around through teary eyes and noticed I was on a bed. I looked to where he was standing near a makeshift table. He picked up a knife and a roll of duct tape and held it up for me to see.
He walked over to me and knelt onto the bed.
“No, please, Jace, get away from me,” I cried, doing my best to squirm away from him. “I’ll do whatever you want,” I begged.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he mocked again. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for those words to come out of your filthy little mouth?”