Hanover House: Kickoff to the Hanover House Chronicles

by Brenda Novak

  Then she realized it was coming from her. Her brain was so foggy, so...sluggish—and despite the numbness that’d invaded the rest of her body, her head felt like it was about to explode. The golf ball in her mouth, held in by a gag, made it so difficult to breathe. Only if she remained calm could she get enough air by dragging it in through her nose.

  What’d happened? How did she come to be here? Was the person who’d abducted her a psychopath she’d studied? Or maybe another enemy—someone who didn’t agree with her approach to treatment—trying to recreate the trauma of her past?

  Because as much as this place looked like the shack where she’d been tormented for three days at sixteen, it couldn’t be. After he’d left her for dead, Jasper had torched it.

  She thought it had to be a copycat—until she saw the picture. Then her stomach cramped and she gasped, nearly sucking the ball in her mouth down her throat.

  “Oh no! God, no!” she moaned, but it didn’t sound like actual words. She wasn’t able to articulate.

  “Help me!” came out like more of a scream. “Please!” didn’t sound much different. Jasper had found her. That was who’d run her off the road last night!

  No, she tried to tell herself. The driver of the blue car had to be some other man, any other man.

  But she knew in her heart it wasn’t, and that knowledge made her tremble. Soon, she was shaking so badly she could feel the bed jiggling beneath her.

  Where was he? The shack was so small that, unless he was under the bed, she’d be able to see him. That meant he had to be in the regular world, living whatever life other people thought he lived—like before, when he’d go to school and baseball practice as if he didn’t have her tied up in a place just like this. He wasn’t someone who acted odd or reclusive. He was a chameleon who behaved however he had to behave in order to blend in, be liked, escape notice.

  But he wouldn’t stay in the regular world for long. Evelyn had no illusions about that. He was too sadistic. No doubt he was already counting the seconds, anxious to return, to inflict what pain he could—which was considerable—so that he could watch her suffer.

  She’d been through this once, knew what he had in store.

  Squeezing her eyes closed, she tried to hold back the tears that welled up. She couldn’t allow her sinuses to fill, or she’d suffocate. Even more importantly, she had to subdue her fear, which was also rising, or it would drive her mad before she could even attempt to save herself.

  Concentrate! She had to put whatever minutes she had left to good use. Once Jasper returned, it wouldn’t take much time for him to rape her. That was where he’d start. And it would be brutal, would probably leave her so injured she wouldn’t be able to escape even if he left her untied. So, as impaired as she felt by fear and the aftereffects of whatever he’d used to drug her, she was at her strongest right now. She had to use that strength to her advantage; it was all she had.

  Breathe. That’s it. In and out...

  Despite this self-talk, tears rolled into her hair as she looked around. Had he left anything behind that she might be able to use to get free? Her wrists and ankles were tied so tightly, the situation felt hopeless, but she couldn’t succumb to despair. She’d never make it out of this alive if she did.

  Honestly, it wasn’t the dying part that scared her. It was everything that would happen before.

  She saw a wagon inside the sagging front door, which had a rope tying it shut. A small table took up one corner of the shack. The chair with the picture taped to it had been arranged in front of her. Jasper had gone to great pains to recreate the “hut” they’d furnished together at one time, she realized—the lover’s hideaway he’d turned into her torture chamber. There was even a throw rug similar to the one she’d once pulled out of a Dumpster so that they could make “their” place a little more comfortable.

  She whimpered again, unable to help it. This was unbelievable, her worst nightmare.

  Keep looking. Figure out a way to help yourself!

  Besides the furniture, she saw a small refrigerator, just like they used to have for soda and alcohol, even though there was no electricity, piles of rope and cord, zip ties, a lantern, a few whips—Oh God, she knew what those were for—sacks filled with she couldn’t guess what, and two or three old, dirty blankets. One looked like it had blood on it already, which made her nauseous on top of everything else.

  Don’t get sick! If she threw up, she’d choke on her own vomit...

  Doing everything possible to gain control, to swallow the revulsion that caused the sickness, she tried to pretend as if she was just home and in bed. This was nothing but a bad dream.

  Except she couldn’t pretend that for long. She had to face reality, had to get out. And nothing she saw would help her, even if she could get hold of it. There were no knives, no scissors.

  She was just going to have to work at her bonds until they came loose, she decided. That was her only hope.

  Flexing her hands to allow some of the blood back into them, she thought of Amarok and wished he’d come, even though it was impossible. She thought about the night he’d shown up when her phone line had been cut and how she’d stepped out of her house and into his arms. It’d felt so reassuring, so good. He wouldn’t want her to go through this again, she told herself. He wouldn’t want her to suffer. He was trying to help her heal. Just what he’d done so far had made her feel more alive than she’d felt in twenty years.

  She had to keep fighting...

  She yanked on the ropes that held her feet in place, but there was little give. She tried the same with her arms. They were tight, too. But if she could get the damn gag out of her mouth, she might be able to lean over far enough to be able to use her teeth to untie one of her hands. This was an old bed, not quite a double.

  She’d started by concentrating on nothing except the need to roll that gag down so she could spit out the ball in her mouth.

  Pulling her chin back toward her neck as far as possible, she used her tongue to push the ball against the fabric that was holding it in. It did no good, but she kept at it, hoping to create enough flex that she’d eventually be able to shove it through the opening she was trying to create. Then she would at least be able to use her jaws.

  It was a painstaking process, so painstaking that she was soon soaked with sweat. She could hear the rasp of her own breathing, felt as if she was just this side of suffocating at all times. But it was the heat of the sun, beating down on the shack outside that frightened her most. That’s what told her it was no longer early, that time was slipping away...

  “It’s not going to work! He’s going to get here before I can even get close!” a voice wailed in her head. But somehow she silenced it, drew as much breath as she could muster and kept straining against the gag.

  ***

  By the time Jasper got the girls off to summer camp, it was nearly nine. Then he had to report the Camry as stolen, which took another hour of dealing with his wife and her shock, the insurance company and then the police. By the time he was finished with it all, it was almost eleven and he felt like the day was nearly wasted, especially because Hillary wouldn’t be home until late this evening, so he’d have to be back by three to pick up the girls. It’d made Hillary mad enough that he’d sent Chelsea to camp despite having thrown up in the night; Hillary wouldn’t hear of her spending any time at a friend’s after. “They need to spend time with their father,” she’d said, making sure he understood that he was supposed to stay home with them regardless of any job interviews, training or other conflict.

  Having Hillary go out of town was what had made it possible for him to kidnap Evelyn, but it was also making it difficult to spend any time with her, because he had to fulfill all the responsibilities that Hillary normally handled.

  “Bitch,” he muttered, hating his wife and her girls. He needed them. He knew that. He’d have to figure out a way to pay his own rent and living expenses without them. And yet he couldn’t help resenting them at ti
mes. He’d often felt the exact same about his parents when he was growing up.

  But he was free for now—for the next four hours. With drive time, that’d give him only three with Evelyn, however, which wasn’t as much as he wanted.

  He glanced over at the sack he’d put in the passenger seat of his wife’s minivan. It contained a few new toys he was eager to experiment with. One was a stun gun.

  He promised himself he’d start out easy so he wouldn’t lose her as fast as he’d lost the last one. He preferred to make the pleasure last.

  Once he reached the turn-off, which was merely a nondescript dirt road going into a wooded area, he watched for signs, as he always did, of other people. He couldn’t see why anyone else would come here. It wasn’t a place that attracted hikers or joggers. It wasn’t particularly scenic, either. It was just a piece of wasteland, owned by the railroad.

  Fortunately, he saw no signs of trouble. He also checked to make sure that the car he’d left the night before couldn’t be seen, and was satisfied that he’d hidden it well enough. He wouldn’t be able to hide the one he was driving quite as completely, but he wouldn’t be at the shack for long.

  Releasing his seat belt, he grabbed the sack that held the stun gun, as well as the new restraints he’d bought at an S&M store, and opened his door.

  ***

  Evelyn had heard the car pull up. That sound, and what it signified, brought the same sweeping, sickening fear that she’d found so debilitating when she first woke up.

  Jasper was back. She was out of time—too soon. After all she’d done to escape—after getting that gag out of her mouth and freeing her hands—she was still trying to untie one foot, and she wasn’t having much success. She’d torn up her wrists; they were bleeding all over. Her hands were swollen, too—so swollen she could hardly make her fingers work.

  A car door slammed.

  Oh God! “Come on, come on,” she murmured, but the panic rising inside her made her feel like she was about to faint. And knowing Jasper would appear within seconds had stolen the hope that’d kept her going despite the difficulty and pain involved.

  This is it. It’s got to happen now. Now, now, now! Focusing all her mental power on untying that last knot, she blocked out the sounds she was hearing and everything else. Pull, damn it! Pull if you want to live! Make your fingers work!

  It was almost a surprise when the knot gave and she was able to drag her leg free. She could get off the bed—but where would she go? Jasper wasn’t far. She could hear the rocks his feet dislodged rolling down some sort of incline as he drew closer. If she tried to run, he’d see her.

  She’d have to incapacitate him instead. Frantically searching for some sort of weapon, she got up—and immediately collapsed. She couldn’t feel her feet, couldn’t walk.

  The sounds of his approach grew louder. But there were no weapons, nothing she’d be able to use to fend him off—just the whips, and she had no confidence in her ability to use one of those. He’d only laugh as he took it away. Then he’d turn it on her...

  There was nowhere to hide, either—except maybe under the bed, which would be so obvious it wouldn’t be worth her time trying to slide under there.

  She was free, and yet she was still trapped. After the valiant effort she’d put into getting away, and all the pain she’d suffered pulling and straining at those ropes, she wasn’t even going to have the chance to escape.

  That seemed grossly unfair...

  Should she stand behind the door and try to knock him off balance when he came in? Maybe then she’d be able to get around him and run—except that her legs felt like rubber. She wouldn’t make it far, and the chase would only make him angrier, more violent. She knew from past experience how explosively he reacted to any defiance.

  Then her gaze landed on the mini-fridge. It was so small, too small for most human beings. But if she could unlatch the door, as if she’d left, and shove whatever he kept in the fridge under the blankets so she could squeeze inside, he might assume she’d already escaped and panic, flee for fear she was getting the cops.

  It was her only chance, she decided.

  The only problem was...even if he fell for such a trick, she knew she’d be just as likely to suffocate inside that fridge as survive.

  ***

  Jasper’s stomach plummeted the second he saw that the rope he used to tie the door shut was dangling loose. Who’d opened it since he left last night? Had someone stumbled across this place and found Evelyn?

  “No!” With his heart beating out a rapid tattoo, he threw the door open and stared at the bed. Sure enough, Evelyn was gone. But it didn’t look like she’d been found; the fresh blood smeared all over the mattress made it look like she’d escaped.

  “Son of a bitch!” he cried and upended the bed, threw the chair against the wall and tossed the table to the other side of the room. This was Hillary’s fault, damn it! If she wasn’t such a demanding bitch, always so concerned with her bratty children, he could’ve come earlier—and then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

  How long had it been since Evelyn freed herself?

  He had no idea. She could’ve woken up as soon as he left.

  But it couldn’t have been easy. The fresh blood attested to that. It also attested to how determined she was, that she insisted on fighting him.

  Damn her! Where was she?

  He ran outside and covered his eyes to block out the glare of the sun as he scanned the area. He didn’t see anything. But even if she was close, she could be hiding in some trees or be snuggled down behind a berm. He called out for her, but it wasn’t as if she’d answer him. Even if he spent all day searching, he might not find her.

  And what if she’d made it to the road already? Been picked up?

  Surely, if the police weren’t on their way, they’d be coming soon.

  “Shit!” In a final, last-ditch effort to see if he could recover her, he checked the ground for drops of blood, hoping that might give him some indication of where she’d gone and how far she’d gotten. But he couldn’t see any blood—or footprints. With all the vegetation, that’d be unlikely, anyway.

  There was no other option—he had to destroy the shack and get out of there.

  After hurrying up the hill to his wife’s minivan, he grabbed the gas can he kept in the back and returned to his hideaway to pour it all over the mattress. Then he tossed a match on that mattress and, before he left, torched the Camry too.

  Chapter 16

  Evelyn couldn’t believe Jasper hadn’t seen that the door to the fridge was ajar. When he’d gone outside, she’d had to open it to gulp for air—or she’d pass out—and he’d surprised her by returning. Then she hadn’t been able to get it shut all the way. But he’d been so intent on what he was doing, she didn’t think he’d noticed.

  She would’ve been glad about that, relieved—if she hadn’t smelled gasoline.

  The shack was a tinderbox to begin with, and he’d just added an accelerant. If she didn’t get out fast, she’d burn to death. But the loud crackle made it difficult to know where he was, since she could no longer hear him. Was he outside watching the place burn? Could he be hoping to flush her out?

  Paranoia tempted her to think that way, to believe that he knew more than he probably did. The frightened child inside her tried to convince her to remain hidden, because that fridge, especially now that it was encircled by fire, seemed like the only place he couldn’t reach her. She was afraid if she scrambled out and headed for safety, she’d only run into him, and she had no illusion that it would be any better fate than dying where she was.

  But then she thought of Amarok, and her parents and sister, and her work. She’d told herself for years that she wouldn’t allow Jasper to get the best of her. She’d fought that first experience with everything she had. Why would she let him win in the end?

  She wouldn’t, she decided. She was going to survive. Again. And then she’d do everything in her power to see that he was finally punished s
o he could no longer hurt her or anyone else.

  The heat was already unbearable, and smoke hung so thick in the air, she couldn’t breathe. Coughing and gasping, she pushed herself out of the fridge and onto the dirt floor. She could see flames licking their way up to the roof, knew the whole shack could crumble on top of her any second. Yet she could hardly move, still didn’t have complete control of her body. Curling up inside that fridge had done nothing to get the blood flowing back into her limbs, so she was as numb and tingly as she’d been before—not to mention weak, hungry and exhausted.

  Move! Now! she ordered herself. The fire was consuming the shack like a piece of paper. If she waited any longer, she’d burn right along with it.

  Remaining low to the ground, she dragged herself to the entrance. The flames had caught hold of the door, but she grabbed that old, bloody blanket she’d spotted earlier and used it to protect her from the flames as she crawled across the threshold.

  Part of her believed Jasper would grab her immediately. But once she reached the cool embankment of a creek and rolled over onto her back to stare at the sky overhead, she realized she was alone.

  She stayed there, gulping for breath until she also realized something else—if she didn’t get up, he’d escape. She had to get a good look at him, note the license plate number on his car, something. Otherwise, she could spend the rest of her life as she’d spent the past twenty years, wondering if he was around the very next corner.

  Driven by sheer determination, Evelyn staggered to her feet. But she’d been unconscious when he brought her here, had no idea where she was, or, now that she was no longer in the shack, from which direction she’d heard his car approach. Fear, panic and desperation had a tendency to distort perceptions, which was also a problem.

  By the time she saw the smoke of a second fire, and could walk well enough to climb the embankment to reach it, she was fairly certain he was gone—and so were the license plates on the burning vehicle he’d used to abduct her.