Chapter Eighteen
“Taking me was a terrible idea, just in case you were wondering.”
Kenzie sat in the backseat of a black car that reeked of cologne, rubbing her wrists together inside their plastic zip-tie bindings. She couldn’t tell if it was the man sitting beside her—Jeremy, according to Tracksuit, now in jeans and white collared shirt—or if someone had actually used men’s perfume to clean the interior. Either way, it was giving her a headache.
They’d found her at the hotel. Tracked her all the way from Ambrose, they’d said. Cole had used a fake name when he’d gotten the room, so either her discovery was very good luck, or they’d been followed.
Whatever the case, the plan had fallen through. She couldn’t call the cops if she was their prisoner.
Think.
“Your boyfriend’s not coming to get you this time.” Jeremy’s accent made his words sound like even more of a challenge.
“How predictable,” she said, casually wiping her damp palms on her thigh and staring out the window so they couldn’t read her face. “Expecting a man to save a woman. Every woman knows she’s got to save herself. We just let you all think you’re doing something brave so it doesn’t burst your fragile egos.”
Tracksuit, who she could see in the rearview mirror, frowned and scratched his head.
She was planning on getting out of this, one way or another. If Cole or anyone else offered help, she wasn’t about to turn it down. These guys were thugs. They were thugs when they’d jumped Cole in Ambrose, and they were thugs now. The only difference was she didn’t have an eight-inch kitchen knife to defend herself with.
“I wonder what’s more fragile,” Jeremy commented, smiling her way. “My ego, or your skull? I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
The anxiety snapped, giving way to a red-hot fury. She spun toward him, hands locking together so hard her knuckles turned white. Images of Flapjacks up in flames filled her vision.
Calm down, she told herself. Think.
She’d been in a situation like this before and gotten through it. The worst thing she could do was show that they’d gotten to her. Men like this preyed on fear.
“It was a shame you had to run off so fast,” she said through her clenched teeth. “I know this insurance investigator who’s just dying to meet you.”
In the front seat, the driver laughed.
“You’ve got a sense of humor, I’ll give you that, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.
He held his hands up, leaving the wheel unattended and making her heart stutter in her chest. They’d left the freeway five minutes ago and were heading toward downtown. She wished she knew this area better. She couldn’t even guess where they might take her.
“Did you think running away was going to save you?” asked the driver. “That we wouldn’t find you? Here, right down the street from Haley’s Comet?”
She didn’t know what that was, and cursed herself again for not knowing the area. She felt like a fish out of water—a fish very quickly running out of time.
“I don’t know where she is,” Kenzie said, referring to Cassie. “I told you.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Jeremy, flashing a smile, and then removing the gun from the back of his waistband and setting it on his lap. He didn’t aim it at her, but the threat was implied all the same. “You told us you didn’t know Cole well, either, and yet here you are, shacked up in Sin City with him.”
She swallowed her lungs, which had crawled up her throat.
“I gave you a choice, remember?” said Tracksuit. “We could do this fast, or slow. I’m just fine with slow.”
She shrunk in the seat, jaw trembling. Her eyes trained straight ahead.
Jeremy laughed then, while she prayed for a miracle.
• • •
They pulled into an alley off a four-lane road, lined with shops and restaurants, and stopped in front of a green Dumpster. Eyes trained on her surroundings, she waited while Jeremy exited the car, looking for a path to escape.
“Just a word to the wise, love,” he said, leaning down to wink at her. “If you scream, I’ll shoot you.”
He grabbed her arm and hauled her across the seats. When she was standing, her eyes darted toward the mouth of the alley. If she could get past Jeremy’s gun, she might have a shot of making it out of here.
Unless he shot her in the back.
Still, there were a lot of people milling around on the road, just twenty yards away. If she could get close enough they might hear her over the traffic.
Jeremy, reading her mind, gripped her bound hands and dragged her toward a metal exit door on the side of the brick building to her right. The blood pumped through her veins furiously. She thought of Cole, and Garrett, and Cassie. She thought of her grandfather and grandmother. The people she loved. Her home, and her apartment on Beech Acres, and how she’d wanted to dance with Cole after the farmer’s market on a warm summer night.
Don’t let them take you inside, a voice screamed in her head.
She twisted, trying to break free from Jeremy’s hold, and when he grabbed her forearms with both hands, she kneed him between the legs. He bowed forward, a grimace tightening his face, but he didn’t release her.
“The boss’ll be here soon,” said Tracksuit, standing casually near the door. “Would be a shame if you were dead when he got here. I know he wants to meet you.” He’d pulled a cell phone from his pocket and was reading something on the screen.
Kenzie went still. Her rough breaths whooshed through her ears, louder than the pounding of her heart.
Lynch.
Everyone would be together at the same place. If she could get the cops here, then the plan could still work.
Her hesitation was enough time for Jeremy to regain his breath and hoist her over his shoulder. Locking her legs together under one strong arm, he carried her through the door, into the bright lights of a commercial kitchen. The aluminum counters and racks gleamed, while three stoves sat side by side, still half covered by plastic wrapping. Pots and pans, not yet blackened by stains, hung from a rack over a center island. It reminded her of the kitchen at Flapjacks, only brand new and on steroids.
To her left, beside the two massive silver doors of a cold room, stood a woman in her forties. Her blond hair was tucked in a casual ponytail, and her thumbs stuck easily into a belt lined with rhinestones. She appeared to be alone.
“Who are you?” Kenzie asked.
“How long until Sean gets here?” the woman asked, eyes flicking to Kenzie for only a moment before landing back on the driver.
Cole hadn’t said Lynch’s first name. It could be Sean. If so, she had her verification that he was coming; she just needed to figure out how to inform the police.
“He’ll be here when he gets here,” answered Jeremy.
The woman opened one side of the double doors. Inside, the walls were lined with empty racks. Jeremy shoved Kenzie forward, and when her locked knees caused her to stumble, he caught her by the back of her shirt, making the stitching pop and the collar tighten around her throat.
“Wait,” said Kenzie. “Let’s talk about this. Let me go and I’ll leave town. I won’t turn you in to the cops. We can pretend this never happened.”
“Course it never happened,” said Tracksuit, now typing something into his cell. “I don’t see a single witness, do you, Jeremy?”
Jeremy grinned and shoved her into the room. The door slammed closed just as she charged it, bathing her in pitch black. A pain whipped up her arm as her shoulder hit the aluminum siding. She kicked at the door, threw herself against it, but it didn’t budge.
“Help!” she screamed, straining her eyes upward in hopes of seeing an air vent. She saw nothing but darkness, but was relieved to find that the cooling system had yet to be activated. The air inside was tepid, but not freezing.
She needed to be calm. To wait until the boss came. But fear was already breathing down her spine, telling her it would be too late by then.
“Help!” she screamed again, hoping that there was a vent, and that it led outside, so that someone on the street would hear her.
She screamed until her throat was hoarse, and then she lowered to the floor, tucking her knees close against her body, and waited.