“Yeah, it was on the floor, under the bed.” She’s completely hysterical again. “I’ve never seen this before on a phone, there’s an S.O.S. text blinking on the main screen. It reads, ‘Out of Zone’ and … has the address for Red’s Motor Inn.”
“That’s that abandoned hotel with the cabins, a few miles out of the city,” I think out loud.
“Josh! Oh my God! It says Amber Alert on the text and there’s a matching icon on her phone that’s blinking!” she almost screams.
“Run the phone downstairs, I’m pulling onto the corner of Fourth now.”
“Okay!” I hear her footfalls, and a moment later she’s out the door and running toward the car.
I open the window. “Here, see.” She shows me the text and icon.
I touch it, and a white and green app called Amber Alert GPS opens. “Amber Alert—Christ, it’s Charlie’s picture.”
Britt gasps and throws her hands over her mouth.
It seems to be some sort of tracking app that Sophie has set up to track Charlie and warn her if Charlie leaves a set area. I touch the alert, and a Google map opens with a trail of red balloons leading to a green balloon over the hotel’s address. Please, God, let this be where they are.
“Call 911! Tell them about the phone and send them to Red’s and give them the name Officer Jim Murphy. GO!” I can’t waste time. Britt steps back and I swerve around the corner.
I promised Sophie I would keep them safe. I fucking promised! She risked herself and Charlie for me.
Dear Christ, the time I wasted with the goddamn note! She didn’t fucking run away and leave me!
Another instance when I wasted time flashes through my mind, after football practice. Visions of Taylor’s bloody body infiltrate my senses.
Terror and pain threaten to steal my strength … It’s my fault. I was supposed to protect them.
Christ! It’s not going to happen … not again. Not on my watch!
Sophie and Charlie are my family!
I’m going to fucking kill him.
Chapter Twenty-two
Sophie
My head swims and my stomach lurches with nausea. It’s so cold. My eyes open slowly and painfully, taking time to focus. I’m in a small, decrepit structure, like an old cabin. It smells of mold and rotting wood, alcohol and urine. There’s a kitchen space on the far side of the room, and an old sink under a window drips a steady stream. The window has been covered over with cardboard and duct taped. A half-full coffee pot with a cup beside it sits on the counter. Next to them are a box of Hefty black trash bags and a box of Ritz crackers. As I look around me, I notice all of the windows in this room have been covered.
Charlie.
I try to move. My hands are taped behind my back, and my ankles are duct taped to the legs of the chair. He’s stripped me of my boots, socks and winter coat—I’m barefoot and left only in my jeans and tank top. I want to scream, but I stop myself. Last time I did that, he killed my would-be rescuer—and the fact that my mouth isn’t duct taped tells me he’s not too worried about me making noise.
Movement from an adjacent room gets my attention, and I can see the hallway entrance, but no further down the hall.
A toilet flushes.
My heart quickens, and I have to force my breathing to be calm and steady—I can’t pass out.
Hastily, I peer around the room to see if there’s anything that can help me get loose.
A battered metal folding table stands against the side wall. I see my bag and Charlie’s backpack—both are overturned and their contents are strewn across the table.
Fuck! Did he find the secret compartment? I’ve got to get to that bag!
“Look here, the whore is awake.” Jim strolls slowly from the hallway, wiping his hands and face on a ratty towel that he throws over his shoulder when he’s finished.
I think about how he caught us.
A knock on the door.
“Fed Ex,” he said.
Charlie and I were already about to walk out … I didn’t even check through the peephole. When I opened the door, Jim grabbed me. I screamed, twisted in his arms and slammed my head into his face. When he let go I tried to kick him in the groin, but he was ready for it. He got hold of my leg and forced me to the floor.
That’s when Ayana walked in.
Jim drew his gun and shot her right in the forehead. He had a silencer on the pistol, so the only noise was the thud of her body hitting the floor
“Mommy?” Charlie ran into the room, her coat zipped and her backpack strapped to her.
“RUN!” I screamed and kicked Jim square in the kneecap.
“FUCKING BITCH!” He went down, but even though I scrambled fast to get back on my feet, he got hold of me.
Jim cupped my chin and forced my head back while he stuck the gun in my face.
“Emma-Jean?”
“Let go of my mommy!” she screamed.
“You’re mommy has been very bad,” he told her.
“You’re bad!”
“Do you see the gun? You don’t want me to hurt her, do you?”
Charlie shook her head.
“Then you have to be quiet. You can’t yell,” Jim warned before turning his attention back to me. “Get up.”
He held my arm like a vice as I stood. For just a second, he scanned the room.
I slammed against him, jarring the gun from his grasp. It projected across the living room. We wrestled for a moment before he pulled a syringe out of his jacket pocket and lunged at Charlie.
“What are you going to do now?” The needle tip poked against the soft skin of Charlie’s neck threateningly.
“No, please. Don’t use that. I’ll be quiet. I’ll even help you,” I tried to persuade him.
“Don’t do any fucking fancy shit like that again, and I want to see your hands at all times.”
“Okay. Anything you want,” I assured him.
“You’re going to write a note to your fuck buddy, breaking up with him.”
“There’s a pad and envelopes over at the desk.” My eyes indicate the piece of furniture by the window.
“Go ahead. I know you’ll be good,” he said and looked down at Charlie.
I stepped over Ayana’s bloody body. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I breathed.
I wrote the note fast and stuck it in the envelope. I signed it Isabella, hoping it would alert Josh that something was wrong.
Moving slowly and non-threateningly, I went back over to the foyer, where he was waiting.
“I should’ve known when I found you, you’d be whoring around.”
He looked over at the table where we throw our keys and stuff by the door. I saw the newspaper photo he must have put there. It was a picture of me, Josh and Charlie with a caption that read, Has the Williston fighter playboy found his true love?
“Two years, I searched for your fucking ass. I’d about given up on finding you when I saw this.”
Charlie was crying as he held her out of my reach.
Jim had my purse slung over his shoulder. “Nice and slow, we’re going to go down to my car,” he instructed.
I knew if we got in that car we were as good as dead.
For the first time I noticed the blood running from his nose. I wondered if I broke it when I slammed into him with the back of my head. I thought about diving to strike it again, but the needle at Charlie’s arm stopped me.
“You first, Bella,” he ordered me.
I didn’t move.
“Turn and walk toward the door,” he grated forcefully.
I obeyed. As I closed my hand over the doorknob, I felt the sting of the needle pierce my flesh and press into my muscle.
A moment of panic coursed through me as I felt myself blacking out. I got one last glimpse of Charlie crying and screaming, “Mommy!”
“Where’s Charlie?” I demand.
“You’re in no position to be demanding anything, bitch.” He comes over and backhands me across the face.
It’s so hard, my already compromised vision goes in and out of focus.
“Tell me you haven’t hurt her.” I know better than to beg or cry, it only fuels his violence and dehumanizes me, so I keep my voice steady and polite.
“She’s in a ketamine sleep in the other room.”
Ketamine, ketamine, what the hell is that?
“I haven’t hurt her, yet.” He drags out the word yet. “That will depend on how I feel when I’m done hurting you.”
“Do you want us to go back home with you? We could be a family again.” This is psychological warfare. If I can just keep him thinking, throw him off … maybe I can keep us alive.
“LYING SLUT! You gave yourself away and spread your legs to that fighter and who knows who else! You’re all used up, bitch.” He spits at me disgustedly and takes a hunting knife from his back pocket, opening it to reveal the long, jagged blade.
My breath hitches and my heart slams in my chest. I bite the inside of my lip as my body begins to produce tears without my permission. I push them back.
“No, you had your chance for that,” he says.
It’s so cold in here, he’s wearing a coat and I can see his breath. Icy wind blows outside and through the walls.
There’s no heat, I realize.
He walks a slow circle around me. “No, this time I’m going to make good on my promise to you.” Jim slides the flat of the knife blade down my arm. “I’m going to cut you into little pieces—small enough to fit you in those garbage bags over there …” he points the knife tip toward the box of bags I saw earlier on the counter. “You are, after all, nothing but worthless trash. Then I’m going to bury you, so no one will ever be able to put you back together again.”
My wrists strain against the duct tape, but I’m wrapped tight. There’s a method to tearing duct tape—Josh showed me … how do you do it? I can’t remember!
“Always trying to run away.” He shakes his head. “We could have had a good thing, me and you.” Jim runs the knife point down the leg of my jeans from thigh to knee. Painfully, it slices through the denim. Blood colors my jeans.
I groan through it. He lifts the knife and wipes the blade with the towel.
“What are you going to do to our little girl?” I grit out through my teeth.
“If she’s mine, I’ll let her live. If she’s not, she’ll share your fate.”
“She’s yours Jim, I promise.”
“Your promises are lies!” he screams into my face. I taste his acrid breath. “I’ve wasted so much time on you! I’ve searched fucking everywhere. How the fuck could you stay hidden for so long from me!?” Jim paces back and forth in front of me, brandishing the knife.
“I’m sorry. You were a good man. I should never have left,” I say as my body trembles due to its plunging temperature.
“DON’T PATRONIZE ME!” He punches me across the jaw with the hand holding the knife.
*****
When I wake up, I’m soaked to the bone. My face and leg hurt.
“Open your fucking eyes!” Jim stands over me with a filthy soup pot.
I’m confused. He hit me, I remember. I must have passed out.
My clothes are drenched with ice cold water. I’m going to freeze to death.
“We can talk this out.” I feel so vulnerable and helpless—I’m wrapped with duct tape, my baby’s in the next room asleep in a drug-induced coma and Jim intends on murdering me.
My teeth start chattering uncontrollably as I begin to shiver.
“You had a sweet cunt until you got fat and loose with the baby.”
I cringe—I hate that word. He’s called me that so many times.
“In fact, it was so sweet, I’m thinking about having a go with you one more time.” He runs the knife up my leg now and positions the tip of it at my inner thigh.
Terror strangles me. The thought of the agony he can inflict engulfs and blankets me like a nightmare.
I check my breath. “You can’t have real good sex unless you untie me from this chair.”
It’s a deadly game of cat and mouse, but I would do anything to have him untie me; because that’s my only hope.
“No one is coming for you,” he reminds me.
I know.
The Amber Alert GPS tracker is disguised in Charlie’s wristband, but it only works with my phone. I don’t even know where my phone is. I never thought Jim would take me too. Why didn’t I tell Josh about the GPS? I could have added his phone to it too. I wasn’t thinking—things had been going so well that I’d let my guard down. Deadly mistake. Don’t dwell on it – think!
“Then that gives us more time,” I say.
Jim glides the knife now to my throat. I feel it prick my skin, and a bead of blood rolls down my neck.
“How can I trust you?” he sneers.
I imagine Charlie alone with him after I’m gone. I can taste her fear.
“I guess you can’t, Jim. But isn’t that what makes it more interesting? The gamble?” I lean into the knife, cutting myself deeper, and it startles him enough that he takes a step back.
If he’s going to kill me it will be on my terms—I will do everything I can to cooperate and get my little girl safe.
“Do you know where we are?” he asks, like he’s holding all the cards.
“I don’t know, but I’ve been in better. Couldn’t you afford the room with the mini-bar?” I chide, my body shaking violently from the cold and my own dread.
“Scream,” he commands.
“I don’t want to wake up the baby.”
“Oh, you won’t wake her. I injected her with the same shit doctors give patients before surgery.” He’s so pleased with himself. “Now scream!”
He forces the knife into the muscle of my leg and twists it.
I scream. It’s guttural and bone chilling, like a wild animal caught in a hunter’s trap.
Jim smiles menacingly as he rips out the blade. “There now. No one within miles—no houses, no nothing. We aren’t even on a main route, so if you’re thinking about running, you’d freeze to death before you got to someone who’d help you.” He walks around me again, sometimes touching me with his knife just so I remember. “And who would help you? Your own mama didn’t want you. You’ve got no daddy. You got no one, no friends, no relatives—the only person you ever belonged to was me. No one even looked for you after you left. Unloved, unwanted piece of trash.” He laughs. “All I’ll be doing is taking out the garbage.”
“Fuck you! I know love. You’re the piece of pitiable trash—kidnapping a little girl and your ex-wife—”
“WIFE!” Jim shouts. “NOT EX! You are STILL my wife!”
“And look at you, cutting me up while my hands are tied behind my back.” I’m seething. The cold isn’t even bothering me anymore. Maybe I’m not here anymore. Maybe my soul is already gone and my body’s been left to fight, because I don’t feel real. “Tying up a girl and acting all big and bad. You’re not a man, you’re a pussy.”
Jim slaps me across the face. “Bitch!”
But I won’t stop. I can’t. “If you were a real man, you’d let me loose and take your chances on a real fight.”
I see the confusion behind his eyes. That’s what I want.
“You know, I could just keep you here!” he rages. “And do what I want to you for as long as I want.”
I might not like the prospect, but I’m not dead yet, so every moment is a moment closer to freedom.
A cell phone rings from his pocket. “We’re not finished.” He points the knife at me.
He turns and walks into the hallway for privacy, but I can hear everything. Whoever is on the phone is in on the plan with him.
“Yeah,” he says. “Got them both. It was fucking easy, even got a third bitch in the process.”
Ayana. I wince. Third bitch?
An extra dose of fright surges through my veins. He doesn’t mean to keep Charlie alive. He’s going to kill her too.
“How much longer before
you get here?”
He’s bringing in someone else? To help him? Any hope I’ve conjured deflates.
“Awesome, man. Yeah, we should be done in time for dinner.” He laughs.
We.
There is nothing in my reach! I’m in the middle of the fucking floor! I don’t have nails long or sharp enough to break through the tape.
Then I remember—work the tape by twisting the wrists side to side.
I start twisting fast.
I listen to Jim take another piss.
As he does, I hear his friend’s car pull up outside.
I can’t stop fucking shaking!
Suddenly, the duct tape gives way, and a second later, it snaps.
I broke the tape!
Another moment passes, and Jim’s footfalls are advancing down the hallway.
God, he’s coming back!
Quickly, I bend and rip the tape from one ankle. I’m about to start on the other one, but I’m startled when his buddy bangs on the door.
I know the door is locked right now, and I know my chances of survival are zero if I have to contend with two of them.
Jim comes out from the hallway with his eyes on the door.
Josh told me to always hit first.
As he comes through the main room to get to the door, I don’t waste time. With the element of surprise, I leap to my free foot, position my weight for balance, and power-kick with my foot that’s still attached to the chair. It’s a high kick, causing the metal folding chair to strike him in the head.
There’s such force, and the speed of the chair creates so much momentum, that as Jim buckles to the floor, I’m thrown with the chair into the kitchen counter.
“FUCKING WHORE!” he yells. “You’re going to pay heavy for that!”
I don’t have time. I’ve got to get this fucking chair off of me! The tape is already half ripped. I tear it the rest of the way, spin myself to my feet and wield the chair in front of me as a weapon. Unfortunately, I know he’s a lot stronger than me.
Getting a good look at Jim, who is now back to standing, I see that the chair did some damage. His nose is gushing blood again, and the side of his face is scraped and inflamed. He’s poised to charge at me.
Dare Page 24