Don’t worry about it, he thought. If he comes, he comes. Deal with it then. Right now, I need to get my legs in working order and get the hell out of here.
Brian re-shifted his body so that he was on all fours. A sensation of warmth seemed to spread along his lower body and legs. Brian recognized the feeling as renewed strength and sensation. He moved each leg, bending it at the knee, flexing it. He did this with the right leg, then the left, rotating his ankles as well, all in an attempt to restore feeling in his legs. As feeling and strength returned, his mind registered that the floor was cold steel as well. He needed his legs to be able to withstand his weight, needed them in good working order in case he needed to sprint. Or run.
He reached out with his right hand, groping blindly. The door to his prison was just ahead of him. His fingers brushed it—cold steel—and he crawled forward, moving his hand along the door, the wall, feeling his way around. Now that he had a sense of where he was, and using the wall as a guide, he slowly rose to his feet, making sure his left hand was supporting his weight.
He stood there for a moment, holding his breath. Then, he stepped away from the wall.
And did not fall.
Is the door locked? he thought. Of course it is. It has to be.
Tentatively, he reached out and groped for the door handle. His fingers grasped it, not recognizing it as a normal door handle. Curious, he leaned forward, pressing his right ear against the steel door and listened.
There were no sounds from outside. No sense of movement.
Brian listened for several minutes. When he was pretty sure there was nobody outside, he moved the latch on the inside of the door, fully expecting it to be locked from the outside.
There was a whispered click and the door eased open.
Heart pounding, Brian peered outside.
The area outside was dark, but not the way it had been in his prison. Brian waited for his vision to adjust to the slight variation, then he eased the door open more, cautiously stepping out. He slipped to the side of the door and eased it shut, making sure it closed softly to not attract unwanted attention.
Then he stood with his back against the wall, his mind racing, wondering what to do next.
I don’t even know where I am, Brian thought. He looked around, craning his head up at the ceiling. He was in a thirty by forty foot room with bare concrete walls. To his left was the door that led to his temporary prison. As he looked at it and the other door next to it, he realized where he’d been kept—inside a large, metal freezer.
Why was I kept in a freezer? Where the hell am I?
As Brian stood there contemplating this, his mind raced back. He remembered walking to the utility shed on the northwest side of the Bent Creek grounds on the morning he was abducted. He had a faint memory of being inside the utility shed, then of being behind it because he’d heard something back there. After that, his next memory was of being tied up, the smell of gasoline very heavy in the air, and the sense of movement. He had the fleeting thought that he was in the trunk of a car. He felt nauseous, then he’d blacked out. His next memory was of coming to consciousness tied up on the floor of an unknown prison that he knew now was a large walk-in freezer.
Brian looked at the two walk-in freezers. The one that sat next to his beckoned him. Was there another captive in there, also tied up? Brian stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then he reacted quickly. He reached out, grasped the metal handle of the second freezer’s door, and pulled it open.
Cold air wafted out at him. The hum of the freezer was very audible, and Brian’s first thought was, this one is turned on. It’s in use. Thank God the one I was in was either turned off or broken or I would have frozen to death. He took a step inside then stopped suddenly, his heart lodged in his throat at what he was seeing.
The freezer was lined with metal shelves two and three feet deep. Stacked on all the shelves were human body parts. Severed arms and legs, torsos. The severed head of a man stared at him from the shelf to his right, his eyes half-lidded, mouth slightly open. He recognized this man. He didn’t know his name, but Brian had seen him around the Bent Creek grounds. He was an office worker of some sort, worked in the administrative area; he was a big guy, a fat guy, to be more accurate. And here he was, his severed head sitting on the metal shelf to his right, the rest of him probably among the other severed body parts on the shelves.
Brian’s eyes darted around the freezer, his blood freezing in his veins at the sight, then he took a step back and shut the freezer door a little harder than he intended. There was a more audible clang as the freezer door slammed shut.
Holyshitwhatthefuck?
Instinct propelled him to flee and he took three running steps toward the door he saw in the corner of the room. He stopped at the door and forced himself to stay calm. Take this slowly, he thought. Be careful.
Brian put his ear to the door and listened.
Silence.
He looked back at the freezers. A third door sat catty-corner from the freezers, one he hadn’t noticed before. Where did that one lead to?
Brian crossed the room slowly. He stopped at the door and paused, holding his breath. He stood there, listening for any sound, but could hear nothing.
Which door do I choose?
Brian glanced around the room quickly. The twin freezers were stacked against the far wall. A large stainless steel table sat opposite the freezer. There were dark stains on the table and along the floor. Metal shelving units ran along the opposite wall. The shelves were bare. A long-handled mop and a bucket sat in the corner.
Heart pounding, Brian contemplated his options. Surely one of the doors had to lead somewhere and would get him out of here. But which one?
Brian turned around and surveyed the room. The placement of the steel table and the freezers suggested that the door he was at might lead to another room. But the other door, the first door he saw upon freeing himself and exiting the freezer—
He had the strong feeling that door opened to the outside.
The question was, would anybody be waiting out there when he emerged?
Brian walked back across the room and stopped at the door. He stood there for two minutes, breathing slowly and silently, straining to listen for any sound.
Nothing.
He reached out and grasped the door handle. His mind went back to his confinement, trying to remember key details of when his captor visited him. He didn’t remember hearing another door open. He just remembered the door to his freezer opening and the man suddenly being there, offering him a sip of water from a plastic bottle. There was no telling from which door the man entered and exited the room.
Brian took a deep breath, weighing his options. Satisfied he was making the right choice, he slowly turned the knob, expecting it to be locked.
The knob turned and he pushed the door open slowly.
Sunlight streamed into the room. Brian winced against the sudden light and closed the door quickly, breathing heavily. His heart pounded. It was still daylight outside, but it also appeared that it was late afternoon. Should he wait a while longer for the sun to go down? No. He couldn’t afford the luxury. He had to get out of here now!
Gritting his teeth, Brian cracked the door open again. His eyes closed in reaction to the light and he turned his face away. The door was only open a crack, surely not enough to attract unwanted attention from outside, but it was enough to tell him that beyond the doorway lay grass.
Brian looked at the grass for a moment, letting his vision adjust. His body was tense, and any minute now he half-expected his captor to come slamming through, pushing him back to the floor. Brian was tense, primed for a fight, but it never happened. If anybody was outside the building, they did not notice the door was open a crack. And as Brian’s vision slowly adjusted, he moved his eyes up and took in the scene outside.
The doorway opened up to a large grassy area. Beyond that lay thick woods. There was no sign of anybody.
Brian eased the do
or open wider and looked around. By craning his head to the right, he saw that the building ended about twenty feet away. There was a small gravel parking lot. The lot was empty.
The door was open almost six inches and Brian thought, fuck it, and opened it even wider, slipping outside. He eased the door shut and stood with his back against the wall, trying to calm his racing heart down.
I made it! I got out!
Okay, first things first. Get the fuck away from here. Dart into the woods, seek cover. Hide!
Brian looked to the right. He had a better view of the lot now. It was empty. Beyond the lot was a series of buildings. He frowned. The buildings looked very much like the style and structure of some of the Bent Creek buildings.
Where the fuck am I?
Who cares? Just get the fuck out of here!
And with that, Brian heeded his own advice. He took a glance to his left, saw nothing but woods and green grass, the building continuing on his left, the windows appearing dark and shaded, and he fled. He ran away from the wall and made a beeline for the woods, darting between the trees and putting them between himself and the blue building behind him.
CHAPTER 18
Twelve Months Ago
He was on the phone with Nina, letting her verbally abuse him.
If it made her feel better, so be it.
“You’re a fucking bastard,” she said, her words slurring. “You’re a fucking douchebag! This is all your fault! Everything that has happened is all your fault!”
“Okay,” Joe said. He was sitting at his end of the sofa. Funny how he never got around to sitting on her end of the sofa after she left. Joe had always loved sitting on the far right side of the sofa, but Nina had claimed that spot as hers years ago. Joe didn’t care either way—he’d take the far left side, no problem. But he did love the right side, since the angle from that position was better when he was watching TV. He’d always sat on Nina’s side of the sofa when she wasn’t home, and he thought he would claim that spot as his own when she’d finally packed her bags and moved out of the house, but he hadn’t. He’d grown so used to his spot on the left side, that he gravitated to it every afternoon after work. He’d become so used to it, that he moved the phone and the television and DVR remote controls to the end table on the left side of the sofa.
“What the hell did you think would happen when you resisted her?” Nina continued. Judging by the sound of it, Nina had been drinking steadily all morning. It seemed that’s all Nina did these days was drink. She’d taken the Newport Beach house and the dogs—pure bred Shih Tzus—as part of the divorce settlement, and from what Joe could tell from the few times he’d seen her, she was living the perfect Real Housewives of Orange County lifestyle. “You knew she would do what she always does—fight you. That’s what Carla does. When she wants something and we tell her no, she fights us.”
“I know that,” Joe said. “And I was trying to reason with her. I showed her the material on Al Azif and the dangers involved—”
“You drove her right into danger!” Nina sputtered. “You drove her away and now look! She’s gone!” There was the faint sound of liquid gurgling in a bottle. He wondered if Nina was back to swigging The Macallan straight from the bottle. “Some father you are. Asshole father is more like it.”
“If it feels good to verbally abuse and demean me, you go ahead.”
“It does make me feel good, you cheap prick.” Nina’s voice was gritty and for a moment it lost its slur. “I didn’t like you when we split up, but now I fucking hate you for what you did to our daughter.”
“I didn’t do anything to Carla.”
“You drove her away!” Nina roared. Joe winced slightly and pulled back from the receiver. “You drove her away and now she’s gone! Nobody has seen her or heard from her in a year! What the fuck do you mean you didn’t do anything! You did plenty!”
Joe sighed. A throb of pain was starting between his eyes. He couldn’t lose it on Nina now. She had every right to feel this way. To tell her she was directing her anger in the wrong direction would be futile. In her mind, Joe was the cause of all this. If he’d not fought Carla so much on the job offer from Al Azif, she’d be okay in Nina’s mind. And maybe she would be. But Joe knew the risks were much greater for a young twenty-something Caucasian American woman to be kidnapped and sold into white slavery in an Arab nation than it was for the same thing to happen in the U.S. He was still convinced Carla had pulled up stakes to escape her creditors in Wyoming. He wouldn’t put it past her to lie low, live and work under the radar. She’d done it during her first year of college—lived rent free in a nicely furnished apartment and worked a stand at the local flea market pulling in a couple thousand a month, all under the table. He’d warned her about the consequences, told her what to look for when it came to IRS meddling, and she’d skated by that one. He wondered if she’d used her knowledge and resources to go underground again, to escape the credit card companies and her landlords. Dean Campbell would find out soon enough.
“I suppose I did,” Joe said. “And I’m sorry. I have somebody looking for Carla now, and we’re getting very close to—”
“You said that last week!” Carla blurted. “You say that every week. I don’t even think you believe she’s going to be found.”
“That’s not true,” Joe began. “I’ve been very—”
“You don’t know shit!” Another gurgle of the bottle. When Nina came back on, her voice was cracking. It sounded like she was crying. “She’s gone and there’s nothing you can do. She’s probably...oh God, she’s probably...some pervert probably took her...killed her...and now she’s lying buried somewhere and we’ll never find her.”
“That’s not true!” Joe said. He felt his throat tightening up.
“How do you know?”
“We can’t resort to giving up,” Joe said. “I’m doing everything in my power to find her and bring her home.”
“Well, you should have left it alone in the first place. If you hadn’t been such a fucking bastard about her job offer in Saudi Arabia with those fucking sand niggers, she wouldn’t be—”
Joe calmly hung up the phone.
He sat on the edge of the sofa, staring at the blank TV screen, waiting for his anger and anxiety to pass. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed slowly, clearing his mind, trying to settle himself.
The phone never rang once while he was trying to center himself.
When he felt better, he opened his eyes. The afternoon sun cast long shadows on the hardwood floor. Joe took a breath, letting the stillness of the house comfort him. Then he rose to his feet and headed to the kitchen to see what he could prepare himself for dinner.
CHAPTER 19
They were sitting in Paul Westcott’s office talking about the brazen thefts with one of the members of the board, Emily Wharton, and Rick couldn’t help but think things were going to get worse.
Emily had taken it upon herself to venture down to the corporate offices to have a chat with the head of security. Rick had never dealt with her personally, but he saw her at the board meetings. She gave him the impression that she was very no-nonsense, an alpha-female in a pack of high-level suits that was largely comprised of alpha males. The only other female board member, Gail Scott, was practically invisible during the meetings. Where Emily probed the executive staff members with insightful questions during the meetings, Gail remained silent and took notes, absorbing everything, watching, observing. Where Emily grew stony and became tenacious, Gail became agreeable and soothing. They played a fair good-cop/bad cop.
Today was the first time Rick felt Emily was paying attention to him. She kept a watchful emerald gaze on him and Paul as the Head of Security brought her up to date on the thefts. Rick had downed a can of Red Bull and a quart of coffee this morning and was still feeling drowsy. The scrutiny he felt from Emily’s gaze wasn’t helping.
“Rick and I have worked tirelessly with our staff to uncover who might be responsible for these thefts,” Paul
said. “We’ve searched all the guest rooms, as well as the staff living quarters, and haven’t found anything incriminating. We’re meeting today with our departments heads to—”
“Have your department heads’ living quarters been searched?” Emily asked.
“No,” Paul said, and Rick detected that the question had caught him off guard. “Not yet. We’re going to—”
“Have the department heads been questioned?”
Another stumbling block. “Ah, no, but like I said, we’re going to—”
“If the lower-level staff’s living quarters have been searched and nothing was found, they’ve been questioned and you’ve detected nothing suspicious in their answers, you need to look at your direct reports.” Emily’s tone was direct, matter-of-fact. You will do this, or else.
“I understand, Ms. Wharton,” Paul said. Rick could tell that Paul was putting on his best air of diplomacy with Emily. He had no idea what company she ran in the outside world, but she carried herself with the air of a powerful woman who could bust your balls simply by looking at you. Rick felt emasculated being in the same room with her. “To be truthful, it is my top priority to recover the missing money. I have every reason to believe these thefts have been carried out by somebody on staff. Perhaps even more than one staff member.”
“If that’s the case, why have most of the staff been let go?” Emily asked.
“Legally, we couldn’t hold them. You know that.”
Emily nodded. “True.” Her gaze swept to Rick. “What do you think, Mr. Nicholson?”
With the spotlight turned on him, Rick instantly perked up. “It’s obviously a staff member,” Rick echoed Paul’s theory. “My guess is it’s somebody from housekeeping.”
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