Chapter Ten

Jack left my place that evening with a big smile on his face and a kiss for me. It was wonderful and romantic on the outside, but internally I was growing more frightened of him and his friends. I had been stupid taking a strange man home from the pub, and even more foolish continuing to see him. I knew better than civilians, yet I had fallen into the same trap that many civilians fall into.

Showing him off, he gave me a kiss and all seemed fine. I tried to scan his face, or read his body language, but there wasn’t anything there to read. Maybe he didn’t blame me for reporting after all.

I was back in my house for about ten minutes, boiling the kettle to make a cup of tea when I realised, I had never told Jack I was a cop, even an ex-cop yet he knew.

I froze in my kitchen, holding the just-boiled kettle, about to pour it into my tea cup. I know Jerome had said that any criminal could spot a cop, and Jack had spent plenty of time with me, but the idea that he knew, and that he never said anything was unnerving.

If he knew that about me, and he hadn’t said anything, what else did he know?

I shook my head and picked up the kettle again, pouring my tea. I was just being silly. Why would he mention that? I was sure there were things about him I knew that I hadn’t mentioned. My mind raced to the manila folder which sat in my handbag still. All the sex we’d had seemed to shake reason from my brain. What was I thinking having sex with him in the first place? What did that prove, really?

Rushing into the bedroom, I reached for the bag. I knew that it would still be in there, but I didn’t want to risk it.

Pulling the bag out from under my bed where it had been kicked, I found the folder still there. I was flipping through it making sure everything was there when I realised I felt warm air on my skin. The window was open.

I went to close it, as I didn’t remember opening it when something dark came from the edge of my vision and hit my head. It knocked me out.

When I came to, I was in a dark space and could feel movement. Coming to, I didn’t move, I merely stared into the darkness. We’d never been trained specifically for abduction as cops, but I knew what was happening.

I blinked a few times and looked around. I felt tightness around my wrists and ankles. When I tried to wriggle, I could tell these binds were not going to loosen. I had been tied tightly. When I reached my hands out, I didn’t reach far before I felt something soft and rough at the same time. Felt, it was carpet. I was in the boot of a car. The movement I felt and the size of the space gave that away.

I focused on my breathing, and knew I could get through this only if I kept calm. A panicked person gets nowhere. I was going to get out of this. Taking deep breaths, I felt the confined space as if it was weighing down on me from all sides. I hated small spaces and always had. I wouldn’t call it a phobia, but I hated them a whole lot.

One breath, two breaths, three. Think. What was I going to do? How could I get myself out of this?

I knew I couldn’t. I knew if someone had me bound in the boot of a car, there wasn’t anything I could do, unless…

Somewhere online I had read that you could smash a cars tail light and then the car would be pulled over by police who would investigate the car for further faults, and, hopefully, find you in the back.

But my feet where bound.

I tried to move them, but then realised, I wasn’t sure which way to kick. I was in a dark space. I couldn’t see anything and had no real idea which way was up. I only knew about the space in which I lay.

Four more blinks, five more breaths. Too quick, I was breathing too quickly.

I couldn’t focus. The only thing I could focus on was my breath, and even then that wasn’t enough. I was having a panic attack.

Breathe. You’ll get through this.

I reached my legs out then and tried to feel my way around, to find a corner or an edge that would help me. If I could work out where the corners were, I would have a fifty-fifty chance of finding the corner where the lights were.

It took me much longer than it should to find a corner, then, as I kicked helplessly with both feet bound, the movement stopped. The car had stopped. We were stationary.

I lay there, my heart in my throat, not sure what to do. I was powerless. I wasn’t able to do anything at all. I just lay there, awaiting my fate.

I knew this must about something to do with Jack, of course it did. But would Jack abduct me?

There hadn’t been anything in that file about abduction, but I could see him doing it, somehow.

There was always this sense that he was a bad guy, when I looked back and I never really trusted him. Some part of me had always held that trust back, had always questioned him and never came up believing the things that he said.

Trust is earned, and he’d done nothing to earn mine. There was always that little something nagging away at me about him, I guess this must be where that feeling came from, if he was the type of guy to abduct his girlfriend and throw her in the back of a car.

I adored him, but I didn’t trust him. I know that’s not love, but it doesn’t mean much, that it’s not love, when you’re bound in the boot of someone’s car. If I lived through this, I could feel bad about my stupid choices later.

Right now, I was just trying to control my breathing, just trying to think clearly, think straight. My heart was going so fast it felt like it was about to beat right out of my chest. I couldn’t take this, but I had to. It’s not like there was a way out, if there was –

There was a loud noise of scraping, then there was light, it flooded into my eyes and hurt my head. Or had my head always hurt? I was sure it had hurt this whole time, I wasn’t just imagining it. This was a real problem all along, this pain near my temple.

Whoever had opened the boot of the car must be standing there, staring at me. It turned out, I realised, that the corner I had found with my foot was not the one with the light in it after all. My legs were reaching away from the light towards the cab of the vehicle. Damn it!

I was frozen and all I could think about was why they were just standing there staring at me? And what was about to happen?

I heard shuffling behind me, and what sounded like sniffling.

Why was he sniffling? Had he been crying? No. He can’t have been crying, maybe, taking drugs? That seemed even less likely. Who abducts their girlfriend then doses up on drugs?

This whole situation wasn’t getting better, and the thoughts running through my mind were not helping. With each blink, with each breath, things got worse.

I considered closing my eyes, I considered pretending I was still passed out, but then I wouldn’t see anything, and I wanted to see things. I wanted to know what was happening to me.

I couldn’t think straight though, I couldn’t keep my thoughts together, not one little bit. My head was racing, the same as my heart.

If he’d abducted me, I was a goner. There was no way he was just doing this for fun. When bikey’s abducted people, they killed them. Bikeys meant business, they were not the type to just abduct you, scare you a little then put you back where they found you. It wasn’t their MO. They meant business, he meant business.

That thought – it made my heart stop.

If he was going to kill me – and I was sure now that he would, now I had thought about it – then there was no way I could get away from him. There was nothing I could do.

There had been a case that Jerome had been involved in, two surfers called it in – they found bodies floating in the water, near some rocks at five in the morning. The tide had carried the bodies from up the beach where they had been killed, execution style by gang members.

When the case was investigated, it turned out that the reason these guys were shot was because they owed the gang members money and were threatening to snitch to cops about the gang members’ activities. I had already snitched.

He would kill me, and I had no-one to blame but myself. I shouldn’t have reported. And when I did, I should never have gone back to him. What had I been thinking? How could I tell myself that things would be okay? I had been so stupid and now I was going to pay for it.

I heaved a great sigh and tried to swallow the fear. I wasn’t going to let him know how scared I was.

I heard his footsteps moving around to the side of the car, then the car door open. He must have been getting something.

Whatever he was doing, I hoped he would hurry up. I didn’t want to be like this forever. I didn’t want this to last too much longer. Every moment felt like an hour.

It could only have been a few minutes since we stopped, and even less since he’d opened the boot and let the light pour in. He was in no rush, he didn’t have to be. I wasn’t going anywhere. Even as all of the evidence was before me that he would kill me, and I wanted it over with since I knew it was going to happen, that other part of my brain was telling me how this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. Surely I would be okay, surely he wouldn’t want to hurt me.

My mind was at war with itself, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. My mind was rushing in two directions. One was the logical part of my brain, the part of my brain that knew what was going to happen after years in the police force fighting crime. That part of my brain told me that he was going to do it, he was going to kill me.

Then the other part of my brain – the part that was still in love with him – told he that he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t do a thing to hurt me. Of course this was despite the fact that he’d snuck into my house before he struck me in the head to knock me out, and that he currently had me in the boot of his car. Denial had its grip, and it’s place in my head securely fastened. Stupid brain.

He was making his way around to the boot of the car again and I felt a cool blade on my ankle. It was the flat of a blade, the chill from it spread from my ankle right up my spine.

“I know you’re awake.” He told me as he couldn’t see my eyes and I couldn’t see him, “don’t move, and I won’t cut you.”

My heart was racing, and my mind was reeling. It was Jack, my Jack, and he was giving me instructions, in his tender voice. The same voice he used when we were in bed. Against all hope, my eyes welled with tears. I didn’t want this, I couldn’t deal. I couldn’t deal with what was happening to me right now. I had to though, and I breathed the tears away as the cool knife slid between my ankles and cut the ties.

I knew what would happen next before he spoke.

“I want you to get out of the car.” He told me, his voice now growing rougher, “but slowly.”

Following his commands as best I could, I turned towards his voice, and without my meaning to, my eyes shot up to his face. There was sadness there, and he’d been crying. His face was red, puffy. But the set of his jaw told me that he meant business.

Those voices in my head that were warring with one another? They were going crazy now! My mind was doing back flips: He was going to do it, that’s why he’d been crying and his jaw was set. No, he wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t, he would never hurt someone he loved.

I started coughing, and without meaning to, turned my head and vomited into the boot of his car. It wasn’t a little bit of vomit either, but a waterfall of food scraps and liquid. It smelt vile and wound up all over my clothes, adding to my humiliation and the sense of vulnerability I so keenly felt.

Doing this right in front of him was embarrassing and I wanted to hide it, but couldn’t. I was all tied up.

He was staring down at me, and didn’t say anything as he grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me through my own vomit.

It was disgusting and embarrassing, but there were more important things to worry about I told myself. He was forcing me to my feet, I could stand, but only just. My legs were like led.

He instructed me to walk and I couldn’t will my feet to move.

Impatient, he pulled a gun from the waist of his shorts and forced it into the small of my back. “Walk.” He said, his tone fierce.

He would shoot, I was sure of it, even as I wanted to deny that.

I walked, but slowly. I was sure I could get away, at least I hoped I could. I had no other choice. Where were we? I tried to look around, to see if I knew the place. It was coastal, a beach below us as we walked along cliffs.

My mind rushed to those bodies that washed up near the rocks that the surfers found. I didn’t want to be one of them. There were tears now flowing from my eyes, along with the bile I could still taste in my mouth.

He was behind me, forcing me forward. There was a deep hatred in his voice as he told me, “you’re making me do this. I don’t want to do this.”

“I am not making you do anything.” I told him, my voice wobbling with the pain. “You are choosing to do this, Jack.”

“Don’t call me that! I don’t want you to call me that!” Jack told me, there was a wobble in his voice too.

My mind raced as I thought, maybe he wasn’t as in control as I thought he was. Maybe I could talk my way out of this. “You know,” I began, unsure where I was going with this, “You could let me go. There would be no trouble for you if you did.”

“What do you mean there would be no trouble?” He asked, his voice too high.

He was behind me, with a gun to my back, but I felt in that moment like I had the upper hand. He did love me, it was true. He wanted me to talk my way out of this. He didn’t want to kill me, or dump my body. But he felt like he had to apparently. Right after we’d made love too. Who was that on the phone? What did they have over him? What did I have to say to get him to release me?

My mind was rushing, my mind was faster than my feet in that moment. What did I have to say? I needed more information.

“Why are you doing this Jack?” I asked him.

“I told you to stop calling me that!” He snapped angrily, his voice a growl “That’s not my fucking name!”

“Okay, Jack. What do you want me to call you?” I asked, my voiced measured.

He shoved the gun barrel into my spine. “Walk faster!” He demanded, “My name is John!”

“Your name is John?” I asked, “Why did you tell me it was Jack?”

Jack, or John, heaved a great sigh at that comment. “Because I didn’t want you to know who I was.”

“Okay.” I said, “Why not?”

There was silence then, I took a few steps. I tried to count my breaths to keep calm.

“You know why not.” He said, he voice exasperated now as well as frustrated. “You’ve read my file.”

I cleared my throat. “Yes, I have.” There was no use lying now, he knew all my secrets, as I knew his. Sadly, this was how we found out one another’s secrets. It wasn’t some other way, not from telling one another because we had such love and trust in our relationship. It was from snooping. He had stalked me and broken into my home, I had used my police connections to find out his crimes. This was not a healthy relationship.

And it was about to end badly.