She yanked her hair with both hands, trying anything to relieve the pain. Her scalp responded, nerves alive all over head, distracting her for a moment from the pounding in her sinuses. She should have stayed home. Should have never involved Dominic in this whole mess. Should have listened when he warned her to stay in the car. Then they couldn’t have used her against him, and she would have foiled Crystal’s plan. She was a naïve, stupid, selfish girl, and now she’d gotten another innocent man killed.
Killed!
She got up and tried the door again. When all her pulling made no difference, she turned on the shelves and threw the bottles, one after the other crashing and shattering against the opposite wall, until they were all gone and there was nothing left to throw, and then she collapsed in the couch, curled up in a fetal position with her face buried in her arms until about an hour later, exhausted, she fell asleep.
________
Loreena didn’t know how long she’d slept before the sound of footsteps woke her. Trembling, she searched the room for something to use as a weapon. There was the broken glass, but she no longer had gloves to protect herself. All she could find was a single pen in the drawer of the desk. She grabbed it and tucked it into her bra.
“You’re not going to be able to keep it secret forever.”
It sounded like Shawn, the one who smelled like Brylcreem. She crouched and tiptoed to the side of the door.
“I don’t give a shit what they think,” Frank said. “I’m leading this operation.”
“Fine. But these guys get something in their heads and they decide to cause trouble.”
“They do that and they’re out.”
“I think Raymond is one of them.”
“Ray’s all talk.”
Raymond. Ray. The one with the meaty hands.
“He’s got a few others behind him,” Shawn said, “and he’s bullying more into his camp every day. He wants your position.”
They were coming toward the door. Loreena held her breath.
“You talking to the girl tonight?” Shawn asked.
“What for?”
“Probably scared out of her wits.”
“What’s she got to be scared of?” Frank paused. “I’ve never seen anything like it. And she didn’t leave a mark. There was no evidence on that man.”
Loreena’s throat tightened, new tears stinging her swollen eyes.
“And Saul’s little blonde brings her right to us!” Frank said. “True love, isn’t it?”
“Guess he doesn’t have the best taste in women.”
“Poor bastard.” Frank laughed.
Hot acid streamed through Loreena’s blood, a new hate consuming her body. They were laughing, laughing about what had happened, laughing about Dominic’s death and Crystal’s betrayal and her brother and her so-called gift, her deadly hands.
“Do you know what she could do for us?” Frank went on. “I mean, I was sure it was all a trick, but…”
They stopped just past the doorway, shoes scuffing the floor. “That’s why I say,” Shawn said, “you may want to talk to her. We don’t want her offing herself or something.”
Offing herself? Loreena pushed back from the door. There it was. The other way she could put a stop to all of this, whenever she wanted. The pen felt cool against her skin. She could use it, puncture a vein. But no. Better to take one of them with her. Better to do it the way she knew how. That would stop them from laughing.
“You want to talk to her, you talk,” Frank said. “You’re better at it anyway.” He walked the rest of the way down the hall, his business shoes clipping in an easy rhythm. A door squeaked open. “In a few days,” Frank called back, “we’ll see if this was all a fluke. Until then, keep her quiet. Oh, and you might want to put some cuffs on those hands.”
The door closed behind him.
Loreena waited. Shawn hadn’t moved. The seconds ticked by. She wondered what he was thinking. Would he come in or not?
One step. Two. The doorknob started to twist.
Rushing forward, she grabbed the pen from her bra, clenched it in her fist, and raised her hand behind her head.
The door swung open. “Stay back!” Shawn said.
Loreena stepped out and stabbed. The point hit flesh—neck? Shoulder? The force reverberated painfully down her arm.
The man grunted and stumbled backward. The pen fell to the floor. Hands on the doorframe, Loreena felt her way out and into the hallway.
Run.
She forced her legs to move. Fifteen steps. It was about fifteen steps. Her pumps slid over the linoleum, and then her outstretched hands hit the other door, the one they had dragged her through. She found the knob and turned.
“Miss!” Shawn called behind her. “Wait.”
He was coming after her. She plowed through the door and shut it behind her, but there was no lock. She didn’t have much time. His body had been over there, by the wall. Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled across the room.
“Dominic?”
He’s dead.
Shawn opened the door.
Get out of here. Now!
But she had to know. Scouring the floor, hands groping in front of her, she searched the area where they had been standing.
The body was gone.
Up on her feet again, she moved in the direction of the bar, left hand guiding her along the wall. If she could get through and outside, maybe she could somehow find a phone. Her hand was on the doorknob when Shawn grabbed her from behind.
“No!” She struggled, trying to break free.
“Stop it.” Shawn held her in a chokehold. “You don’t want to alert Frank.”
He covered her mouth with his hand, but she continued to fight until he got her up against the wall.
“You’ve got to listen to me.” Panting, he pushed his mouth to her ear, his body pressed against her, holding her still. “My name is Shawn. I know how these people work. For your own good, you can’t be doing shit like this.”
She squirmed, but he pushed harder, crunching her breasts against the wall. His hand. It was too far behind her. She couldn’t reach.
“This isn’t about your rights, or what’s illegal, or any of that. Frank has the power in this town. There’s nothing else around this bar for at least a mile. You try to escape, they’ll just run you down before you get anywhere.”
Loreena thought back to the drive into town. Dominic had described it, the way they left the buildings behind as they made their way to the bar. Shawn wasn’t lying about the distance.
“If Frank finds out you tried to escape, it won’t go well for you. He’s a very dangerous man. Do you understand me? You try to escape, it won’t work. It will just make things worse.”
It was growing harder to breathe. A painful pressure built up in her chest and she squirmed again.
He released her and she fell back from the wall, gasping. When she got her breath, she tried again for the door. He grabbed her arm. Turning, she reached for his hands, but he lifted his foot and kicked her in the stomach. She staggered and fell on her rear.
“Will you listen to me?” he said. “You’ve got to stop this! If anyone else but me were here right now, you’d be in handcuffs with ropes around your feet.”
Everything hurt, but she pushed herself back upright, running on adrenaline, past caring what happened next.
“Listen.” He faced her but didn’t come any closer. “You’ve got to think straight. You’ve got to make a man like Frank think he’s not going to get any trouble from you.”
The only other way out was the side door, and that would take her back by the office—but then there was the door beyond that, the one Frank had used only moments before. “Why are you telling me this?” she breathed.
The door she was headed for opened. Both turned to face it. Boots scuffed the floor. “Problem in here?”
The broken voice that accompanied the meaty hands. Raymond?
“Frank asked me to talk to her.”
&
nbsp; “Talk, huh?” Ray chuckled. “You takin’ first dibs or something?”
Loreena backed up, suddenly conscious of the way her skirt had crawled up, exposing her thigh.
Ray came toward her. “Shawn here stepping in without the rest of us?”
Shawn blocked his progress. “Frank don’t want nobody messing around with her.”
“What the hell are you doing, then?”
“Talking. Frank’s orders. Check with him yourself.”
Loreena felt the big man’s gaze on her. His whole body emanated heat like a furnace. Finally, he turned and walked away. “Don’t go putting your hand in the cookie jar without sharin’, know what I mean?” He chuckled, and then disappeared into the bar.
The room seemed to sigh in relief. Loreena’s shoulders relaxed. Shawn groaned. “Packed a good punch with that pen.”
Pen? It took her a moment to remember. Had she gotten him in the neck? “What did they do with him?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Dominic. The man I came with today. Where did they take him?”
“Oh. I don’t know.”
She moved to the right and stopped near where she had last been with Dominic, the place where she had held onto him, his body warm against hers.
“I didn’t know what would happen. I mean, when Frank wanted you two together. What was that, anyway?”
She clenched her teeth. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” He crossed to stand between her and the door to the bar. “I can get you some blankets and a hot cup of tea. If you listen to me, you can get through this alive.”
Alive. More than Dominic got. Did she even care about living anymore? Obviously Shawn wanted her to, for Frank. “Do you at least know where my brother is?”
“Saul?”
She nodded.
He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, blowing the smoke out before he spoke again. “Frank will tell you that if you don’t do what he wants, he’ll kill your brother. Understand right now, he means it.”
Turning away from him, she took hold off her head with both hands, the pain making her sick to her stomach.
“You need to survive, Miss Picket. This isn’t going to last forever.” Blowing another cloud of smoke, he took two steps toward her. “Come on. I’ll get some pills for your head.”
She tensed, arms crossed. “Do you know where Saul is?”
He sighed. “No. But I do think he’s alive.”
He could be lying. Still, the statement gave her hope.
“Frank said something about sending him on assignment.”
“Assignment?”
“It’s all I know. Now let’s go, before someone else comes in here. I’d rather not drag you.”
It took her a moment to realize he was offering her a chance to walk on her own. The thought of another man touching her filled her with disgust, but the last thing she wanted to do was go back into that office.
“This way.”
It was clear she had no choice. Hands by her sides, she walked in the direction of his voice, and then through the doorway and down the hall. It was the longest fifteen steps she could ever remember taking.
9
For two more days, Loreena lived in the locked office, sleeping on the couch. Shawn did bring blankets that first night, a light fleece throw and an old cotton quilt that smelled like smoke and mothballs. He couldn’t find a pillow, and gave her a towel to roll up instead, apologizing for the lack of accommodations. Loreena thought it strange that one of her captors was apologizing to her, but she said nothing, and was glad when he left her alone. In the depths of the night, the quilt was heavy and warm, and she buried herself underneath it where she could forget everything that had happened, if only for a little while.
Raymond brought two meals a day, breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was usually eggs and dry toast, dinner a burger with a bag of chips. She gathered it came from the bar, which apparently doubled as a biker café. She learned to stay at the back of the room when she heard his heavy footsteps approaching. He always shoved the plate in on the floor, and then stood there in the doorway, the only sound the inhale and exhale of his breath. She didn’t dare try to escape, or to confront him. The thought of his afterlife frightened her. She was sure it was not a place she would want to go, so she stayed as far from him as she could, and always breathed a sigh of relief when he left.
Most of the time she could detect the distant sounds of men drinking, laughing, and clinking glasses in the bar. They dwindled in the early morning, which was about the only time she was finally able to drift off to sleep for a few hours. She often wondered if her uncle had called the police—not that it would help. He had no idea where she was. Likely he would think she’d went off in a huff, which she had to admit she had. Still, he would worry, and that pained her. Crystal certainly wouldn’t have admitted anything. She’d probably gone home and gone shopping with Frank’s money, if he ever gave it to her. The thought of the girl made her tense, which led to more headaches, so she tried to think about something else whenever the memory of that synthetic floral perfume assaulted her.
During the long afternoons, she thought about her brother. Was he really on the assignment Shawn had mentioned? If so, she wondered if he might return, but then realized he probably knew nothing about what had happened to her. He was obviously struggling for his own survival, and likely wouldn’t be crossing paths with Crystal anytime soon. Even if he did, she wouldn’t tell him anything, and there wasn’t much he could do about it anyway. Certainly he wouldn’t be able to go up against Frank all on his own, and he wouldn’t dare go to the police.
Around and around she went in her mind, trying to find a way out or some hope of rescue, but always she came back to one indisputable conclusion: she was alone. Completely.
The food always smelled alluring, a greasy fat and meat smell, but it twisted her stomach in knots. Everything but bread made her feel nauseated. She was grateful at least for the restroom nearby, as for a time she couldn’t go more than a few hours without vomiting. In between the stomach cramps and the headaches she thought of Dominic, going over her actions time and again, imagining all the things she could have said or done differently. When she ran out of ways to blame herself, she lay motionless on the couch and thought about what Shawn had said to Frank. We don’t want her offing herself or something.
The third day, they moved her.
Shawn and Ray talked in low voices outside her door, and then burst in together, shouting at her to get back. She was sitting on the couch the whole time, so it was all rather comical in a way, and only later, when she heard Ray set it on the floor, did she realize he’d been holding a chair in front of him, just in case. They ordered her to stand and turn her back, and she obeyed. It wasn’t the time to make a break for it. Shawn still spoke to her like she was a guest. Ray grabbed her around the neck and secured her in a chokehold, both his hands clenched in fists. It was then she noticed he was wearing gloves, leather ones, the fabric cool against her chin. She knew then that for all his threats, Ray was probably more frightened of what she could do than any of them. She also realized that could make him the most dangerous of all the monsters in this place.
They had found her gloves, somehow, and forced her to put them on before yanking her hands behind her back and clamping her wrists into a pair of metal cuffs. When they’d finished, they let her go like they might a wild animal, leaping back as if any minute she would turn and attack them both. When she made no move, Ray clasped his hand on the back of her neck and pushed her forward, out the door and down the long hallway. Shawn came along behind.
The air was cool outside, the scent fresh like rain, the dirt soft and giving under her shoes. Her clothes were thick with grime, hair tangled and limp on her head, and she was glad to breathe the fresh air and walk around again. Ray pushed her across the gravel parking lot until they arrived at a tall vehicle—a van, Loreena guessed. She breathed a sigh of relief. At least they weren’
t going on their bikes. She couldn’t have stood the idea of holding onto either one of them. Hands pressed against the seat, the metal hard on her wrists, she kept her ears open for any chance of escape. Might they stop at a gas station along the way?
Shawn drove, Ray sitting shotgun. Loreena hugged the window in the back seat, grateful for the space between her body and Ray’s, though she could still smell the griddle grease and tobacco that clung to his skin.
They’d been on the road for only a couple miles when Ray spoke. “Didn’t expect she’d sign up for babysitting detail again.”
Loreena turned her head to hear better. They were taking her to stay with some woman?
“Maybe she’s lonely,” Shawn said.
“I tell her to get the hell out of that house. She don’t listen.”
“She’s seventy-one years old, man.”
“She don’t need to hide out up there like some sort of witch.” He hit something—the door? Again he thumped it, drumming with the back of his knuckles. “Pop would have told her the same.”
Shawn didn’t answer.
“He left the old lady one hundred fifty acres, for God’s sake.”
“So you’ve said.”
“That’ll be mine when she knocks off.”
So they were going to a house. Someone in Ray’s family? Loreena wondered what it would be like. A house had more windows than a biker bar. And a phone. It might have a phone.
The van’s wheels made a smooth humming sound on the road, just barely audible above the country music Shawn played on the radio. It took about twenty-five minutes to reach the new place. Loreena could tell by the decreasing frequency of passing cars that they were moving her even farther out of town. They didn’t stop anywhere along the way, but drove steadily along, Raymond monopolizing the conversation with talk of this woman—his mother, Loreena guessed—and of the grand future he had planned for himself once she was gone. He would own the place then. He could hire farmers and grow his own crops, and just think of the money he could make. Shawn agreed with him, praising each of his ideas and going along with the big man’s grandiose image of himself. Yes, surely Raymond would be the top dog around Kelley in no time at all.
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