Chapter Five

 

Tamara

Consciousness comes slowly, and the second I remember what happened, I go stiff with horror.

I’ve woken up to a nightmare. I don’t know what the nature of it is yet, but it will be terrible. I’m lying on a hard, lumpy mattress, and the air smells like wet mildew, so I’m not home, and this is really happening to me.

Something icy-cold circles my ankle. I suspect it’s an ankle cuff of some sort, but I don’t dare move to test my theory in case anyone’s watching. Oh God, I’ve been restrained. The implications of that are horrible beyond measure. I want to look, to jerk my leg, but I don’t dare. Every second I can pretend I’m still unconscious is another second I’m not being tortured.

My life has shrunk down to this. Desperately trying to buy myself a few more pain-free seconds. Sick with terror about what’s going to happen to me in the next few minutes.

“I’m going to play with you.” I remember his mocking voice.

The man I’ve been crushing on for months has me chained up in a fucking dungeon. What the hell is wrong with me? How could I not have sensed what he really is?

Is there any way I’m getting out of this alive?

I can’t possibly think how, and terror and sorrow flood through me. It takes everything I’ve got not to sob out loud.

I lie there in absolute stillness, with the sound of my breathing thundering in my ears. As the seconds tick by, I realize I don’t hear anything at all. I think that, wherever I am, I’m alone. For right now.

I whisper my chant to myself. “One, two, three, four, five, please let me get home alive.” And I tap my index finger on the mattress.

I’m afraid it won’t work. It’s supposed to be done on a mirror or a doorway. This is the ruled created by my panicked seven-year-old self. I follow it to this day.

And am I really alone? If anyone is watching me, the magic doesn’t work.

There’s only one way to know. I have to open my eyes and look around.

I’m terrified. I don’t want to die. I’m nineteen years old. I have my whole life ahead of me.

No. My life is over now. No college, no law school, no friends, no lovers, no husband or children… Hot tears spill onto my cheeks, and I bite my lip to keep from sobbing out loud.

The terror of what might be hovering right over me grows stronger and stronger, and I finally can’t stand it anymore. I open my eyes…and I don’t see anything. I remain perfectly still, listening. The only sound I can hear is the thundering of my own heart. It’s so loud it feels as if it’s echoing off the walls.

Finally, I sit up and look around. A chain rattles as I move my ankle, a horrifying noise that wrenches a squeak of fright from me. I curse myself and freeze for a long, long moment, until I’m sure I’m really alone.

I’m in a damp, windowless cell, and when I sit up, I see there’s one light overhead, but it’s dim. I suspect that’s deliberate, and the unnecessary cruelty makes me want to weep. I’m chained up in a damp dungeon and am being deprived of light as well of my freedom. That tells me a lot about how the rest of my short life is going to play out.

Near the light, I notice a winking red eye in the ceiling. A camera, watching me. Is Joshua looking at me right now? I glance up and slowly, deliberately, flip the camera off. It’s a weak little slap at the man who will kill me, who’s probably sitting in a comfortable chair somewhere laughing at me, but it’s the only way I can fight back while chained up in a dark basement.

The mattress is on a solid iron frame which is bolted to the floor, and there’s a thin blanket crumpled up on it. My ankle chain is bolted to the floor next to the bed, and it’s only a few feet long.

There’s a sudden urgency in my bladder. I desperately need to pee. I stand on shaky legs, look around, then pat my body. I’m wearing my cocktail dress from yesterday, and I still have my underpants on, but my feet are bare.

There’s a metal grate in the floor near the bed. There’s a hole in the middle of it that would be big enough to defecate through.

This really is a prison cell. Joshua Smith has a prison cell, and I’m chained up in it. Someone designed this prison cell and built it for him, or he built it himself…which means he uses it on a regular basis. I swallow the urge to scream. I stumble over to the grate, lift my dress, squat, and pee.

“Did you get an eyeful there, Joshua?” I yell at the camera.

Then my courage evaporates, and I stumble over to the bed and sit there for what feels like an eternity, growing more and more frightened and miserable. Horrible images of what Joshua might do to me crowd into my mind, no matter how hard I try to push them aside.

I take deep breaths and let them out very slowly. Panicking won’t help anything. It never helps. I’ve been in scary situations before, and I survived by forcing myself to stay calm and think clearly. My stepfather breaking down my door when I tried to lock it… Being followed home from work late at night and having to run for my life… A stocking-masked man coming into the burger joint where I worked at two a.m. with a pistol pointing at my face as I quickly emptied the register and prayed not to die…

Sarah, help me, I cry out in my head. I’m so scared. I’m so lonely. Be with me now. Help me die the right way. I summon up her round, plain, smiling face, the way I always do when I’m feeling low. Not my mother’s face—that would be too painful.

I don’t think I’m going to survive this, but I want at least to go out on my own terms.

“You're Tam with a plan, girl. So make a plan for dying right.”

I will keep from crying or begging as long as I can.

I will spit in Joshua’s face at least once.

I will do my very best to draw blood.

I won’t blame myself for anything that he makes me say or do while he’s torturing me.

“That’s my girl!” Sarah says to me in my head. Imaginary Sarah is beaming at me with approval. The evil voice tries to talk, from the oily black swirl of smoke it inhabits, but Sarah slides in front of it and tells it to get lost, and it does.

Finally, the door swings open, and I stifle a yelp of fear.

A woman walks in. Not Joshua.

She’s maybe in her thirties, dishwater-blonde hair scraped back in a severe bun. She’s wearing slacks, sneakers, and a boxy T-shirt, severe sensible clothes that play down any femininity. There are furrows in her forehead that I think make her look older than she is.

I feel an instant flash of recognition when I look into her eyes. People who’ve been abused, we can often spot fellow victims. She’s got that wary, defensive way of carrying herself. She’s suffered horrors. I can see it in the grim set of her jaw. Her brown eyes look hard and pitiless, but maybe she’ll take pity on me. One victim to another.

I shrink in on myself, trying to look as small and unthreatening as possible.

“Please help me,” I beg her. “Please let me out of here.”

She frowns disapprovingly and shakes her head, and I feel fury bubbling up inside me. How could she do this to another woman? How could she help him? But I hide my emotions and make my voice sound timid and weak.

“Please,” I beg her. “I just want to go home. I won’t tell anyone anything, I swear.”

She reaches the bed, and I see she’s got handcuffs dangling from her hand, and a cloth hood. Horror pools in my belly.

“How can you do this?” I cry out. “How can you help him keep a woman prisoner?”

She opens her mouth, and I nearly faint from horror and disgust. She’s got a mangled stump where her tongue should be.

She grins fiercely at my look of shock. Dear God, what did Joshua do to her? It’s clearly driven her mad.

Defeated, I sit there and let her put the hood on me. Swiftly, she cuffs my hands behind my back. Then she releases the ankle cuff and grabs me by the arm. I shudder at her touch but let her lead me out of the room.

I count the steps, in case it helps. Fifty stumbling steps down the hall. Then, on the left, a flight of stairs, twenty of them. Then through a doorway.

I’ve moved into another world, like climbing up from the depths of Hell. It was musty and damp down there. Up here, it smells crisp and clean, with a faint, sweet floral aroma in the air. We go left. I’m walked down another hallway. Forty-five steps. I’m steered to the right. Through a doorway. She tugs impatiently at my arm, and I stumble over the carpet edge and almost fall.

“Slow down, Elizabeth.” Joshua’s voice cracks through the air, and I feel the temperature plummet, making me shiver. Elizabeth, the bitch who has her hands on me, freezes instantly, and then very slowly, carefully, guides me over the carpet and another twenty-two steps.

Then she stops.

“You may leave now, Elizabeth.”

I hear her footsteps thudding dutifully away, and then they fade and she’s gone.

Elizabeth must be terrified of him. That’s why she won’t help me. Aside from hacking half her tongue off, what else must this monster have done to her?

And yet I don’t feel sorry for her. If ever there comes a day when he kidnaps another woman, I won’t help keep her prisoner. I’d rather die.

As I stand there, I hear wooden floorboards creak, then the hood is snatched from my head. Bright light floods my vision, and I stand there, my eyes watering, blinking in the bright light. Joshua towers over me, close enough that I can smell a faint whiff of cologne.

I’m painfully aware my hands are still cuffed behind my back.

“Hello, Tamara.”

I tip my head back, reluctantly meeting his eyes. His smile is like a tub of ice water dumped on my head, making me shudder. How could I ever have fantasized about this man? Now I know what he is, I can see all the signs I missed before. His cold, calculating gaze, the falseness of his smile, the hard cruelty in his eyes.

He’s wearing a white Oxford shirt but no tie. Black slacks. Shiny black loafers.

A long moment stretches out between us as his gaze roves over me. My heart beats so wildly that I half expect it to make my body vibrate in tune.

He kidnapped me. He murdered a man, then drugged and kidnapped me.

Unexpectedly, he reaches out and strokes my cheek with the back of his hand. It’s slow and sensual and calls up unwelcome feelings, a warmth that forces its way through my body. Startled by the strength of my arousal, I gasp and jerk away, stumbling back a step.

He’s watching me with a curious look on his face, examining me, judging me.

“So that’s how you’re going to play it.” He takes another step forward and strokes my face again, and this time his hand drifts down south, caressing my throat, then gently skimming my left breast, making his point. He’ll touch me where and how he wants to. And if I resist, he’ll just do what he was going to do anyway—and more.

As he caresses my breast, my nipples swell, and heat pools in my lower belly.

It means nothing. It’s a physical response to stimulus. I stand rigid, muscles locked, staring at the wall behind him. There’s no point in trying to get away from him. Even if I weren’t handcuffed, I’m hopelessly outmatched. He’s almost a foot taller than me, and lethal as a cobra. There’s no escaping this, so I just endure it, hating the warmth that flows from his hand and heats my skin. He gently squeezes my swollen nipple between two fingers, making it clear that my physical arousal hasn’t escaped his notice.

Finally, he drops his hand to his side, but the gleam of triumph in his eyes makes me burn with shame.

“Why?” I demand bitterly. “You never even liked me. You never even looked at me. I disgusted you so much that you fired me for talking to you.”

At that, anger flares in his eyes. It’s so intense that I can feel it prickling in the air, sharp and thorny. I tense, bracing myself for a blow.

“Don’t ever tell me how I feel.”

“Duly noted,” I snap. And in that brief moment, I’m incredibly proud of myself. I just sassed back to a serial killer. I’m keeping the promise I made in my cell. Going down swinging.

But when he smiles gently at me, my pride evaporates like morning mist, and it’s replaced by fear.

He spins me around and does something to my handcuffs, then they fall off me and my hands are free.

I shake my arms and rub my wrists as I look around.

We’re in an enormous dining room, with a bright chandelier overheard and a rich, plush oriental carpet in tones of light blue, dark blue, and black running down the center of the room. A table with a lace runner down the center sits under a sparkling chandelier, and impressionist paintings in thick gilded frames adorn the walls. The windows, which take up an entire wall across the room from us, are covered with pale ivory blinds, which completely swallow any light, and there are thick blue velvet curtains that sweep the floor.

The table is set with silver platters. There’s prime rib, tiny red potatoes, Brussels sprouts, salad, bowls and gravy boats filled with various dressings and dips. Two places have been set, one at the head of the table and one to the right. The china is decorated with gold leaf.

The surroundings are incongruously, startlingly beautiful. I feel a surge of anger. This room is a lie, just like Joshua’s beautiful face. Joshua doesn’t deserve to live in such lush, elegant surroundings. Everything here should be as dank and ugly as my prison cell—as Joshua’s black, black heart.

He points at my chair. “Sit down. Now.”

I sink down into my seat and my heart hammers in my chest as I look over what may be my last meal.