“I’d be up for that outcome,” she said, with a snort.
“I’m sure you would,” he said, “but I don’t really want anybody like him coming after me.”
“No, of course not,” she said. “You’re obviously weak because he only comes after people weaker than him.” She grimaced, waiting for another blow to the head.
Instead the man was silent for a long moment, and then he chuckled. “So you do understand him. It might be fun to con him too.”
“It probably would be,” she said, “but I don’t have any money to buy my way out of this, and that’s the only language you seem to understand.”
“Not true,” he said. “I understand all kinds of languages, but I don’t have time for that now. I have to give proof of life to somebody before I get paid.”
“And then what?”
“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” he said.
“Please don’t give me back to my husband, and please don’t kill me,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice. In her normal life, before being kidnapped, she was strong, and it would be easy to not beg for her life. She could stand here and be firm. But right now? All she could think about was the fact that this guy held that decision in his hand, and he didn’t seem to care, one way or another.
“I don’t know. Why not kill you though?”
“Well, for one thing, it’ll mess up your car,” she snapped.
He burst out laughing. “If it was mine, I might care,” he said. “But, since it’s stolen, I don’t really give a shit.”
“Ah,” she said, “so you’re willing to carry that on your conscience?”
“If I had one, I might care,” he said callously. “But obviously I don’t, so there you go.”
“Right,” she said, with a sigh. “It doesn’t matter to you, so whatever.”
“Won’t you keep fighting?”
“Why would I fight?” she said quietly. “You don’t care either way. It’s not enough that you have the money, you want blood.”
“I don’t like spilling blood,” he said conversationally. “I wonder if something like karma or fate is out there. I don’t want to test it too much.”
“Well, you must,” she said quietly, “because of what you’re doing.”
“Ah, don’t be so melodramatic,” he said. “There are all kinds of reasons for me doing what I’m doing. If I can get out of killing somebody, I do.”
“So, if my husband finds out that I’m alive, then what?”
“Well, then he’ll come after me,” the kidnapper said, “but it won’t be my problem.”
“How did you know I was in trouble?”
“I saw you crawl out of the back seat of a vehicle on the ferry,” he said. “It’s obvious you were in a panic to get away. How could I not take advantage?” And he laughed and laughed.
She froze. She’d pretended to be unconscious when her initial kidnappers had checked on her, but, realizing they hadn’t secured the back door as they should have, she’d taken her chance and had escaped. She’d had no idea where she was before that, until she saw the ferry, surrounded by water. Apparently this asshole had seen her escape. “So, instead of coming to help me,” she cried out, “you kidnapped me instead?”
“Well, when I see an opportunity like that,” he said, “there’s usually money to be made, and that’s all I was particularly worried about. Saving your ass wasn’t part of it. If you’re lucky, it might still happen. But I wouldn’t count on it.”
Chapter 2
Still blindfolded and bound, her gag back in place, Stacey sank back into the trunk—the lid still popped open, so her kidnapper could stand over her—and she tried to shift her position. After the multiple blows to her head, her headache had come on hard and fast. Her throat was also parched. She was desperately in need of water. But she also knew her kidnapper was cold as ice and didn’t give a shit. Who could possibly watch a woman crawl out of a car and escape and then see her as prey, instead of a victim?
She wanted to shake her head but knew that any movement would make her brains rattle, and she would cry out a little bit more. Something she was desperate to avoid. As it was, it seemed like the world was against her, and she didn’t quite know why.
The one thing that struck her right now was the silence around her; it was deafening, just a weird sense of waiting—whether she was picking that up from her current kidnapper or not, she didn’t know, but it was eerie. With her head covered, she couldn’t see if it was light or dark out, but it felt dark; it felt cold, and it felt clammy. Was she inside this trunk in an underground parking lot? Or out in the cool air in some secluded spot? She felt a bit of a breeze, so she assumed the car was parked outside. But where? The lid to the trunk had only been opened for a few minutes, but it seemed like a chill was in the air already.
She knew the days in Canada could be hot but hadn’t really expected the coolness to come down so fast afterward. Then again, for all she knew, it was a gray rainy night, and a storm was about to break. Just because she assumed that the sun had gone down didn’t mean it had.
They were definitely in the northern part of Canada, and the evenings would be cool. She groaned because she was just trying to make up for the bits and pieces missing from her senses right now. The gag cutting into her cheeks and lips left a dustiness from the cloth in her mouth. As gags went, it was effective because it dried out her mouth, and she couldn’t swallow. If she did manage to swallow a little bit, then she would get a layer of dust off the gag.
The blindfold was dark enough that she couldn’t see through it, and it was musky enough that it gave her a headache, just to add to the rest of her headache. Her hands were tied, and she felt some sticky slipperiness to them, so she assumed her skin had been cut, and she was bleeding.
All in all, the things she discovered by tuning in to her five senses just fueled her despair. What was missing was any sound of laughter, any perception of light, any feeling of warmth or sense of security. She felt like this was the end of the road, that whatever was happening was plain old bad news. Who would do the exchange for this second ransom for her, and what did that mean for her? If the man who showed up here with the ransom was truly from her father, then she would be safe, but she was a long way from Florida, where her father lived. More than likely, her husband was involved, no matter what.
She saw Max sending somebody else out, just to make sure the job was done. That would be so typical of him. And yet she couldn’t even assume that because obviously another player was involved here. And her mind still got stuck on the fact that this asshole, instead of helping her, had kidnapped her. Who gets kidnapped twice?
Why did the world hate her? What had she done wrong? That question kept playing over and over in her brain, and she had no answer, nobody to even ask. Maybe she deserved whatever she got. Sinking quickly into a fugue of depression, she almost missed it—the only sound she’d heard since they’d been here.
Then her kidnapper whispered quietly, “If you want to survive this, stay quiet.”