by Sam West
Mentally, I ran over my possibilities at the speed of light.
Where was my phone?
Phone was in my shoulder bag on the passenger seat in the car.
Shit and double shit.
I contemplated making a run for it but then the game would be up – he would know that I knew he was a….
A what?
The unspoken question seemed to hang in the air around me, as ominous as a storm cloud. But the most important question had to be; where the hell were Scott and his mother?
I had no choice; I had to bluff it out.
“They’re taking a long time.”
Mr Jones, or whoever the hell he was
(the psycho, he’s a fucking psycho)
stretched out his long, jean-clad legs.
Black jeans, I thought. That’s why he’s dressed head to toe in black, because he’s a fucking intruder.
“They’ll be back in a minute. Come and sit down, you’re making the place look untidy.”
I remained standing where I was, every muscle in my body coiled tight.
“Actually, I need to use the bathroom, if you wouldn’t mind.”
He regarded me levelly, a smirk tugging at his mouth. Now that I knew he wasn’t Scott’s father, it was like I was seeing him properly for the first time. He didn’t look fifty because he blatantly wasn’t anywhere near that age. I felt a complete fool for choosing not to see that from the offset.
“Bathroom is through the door and up the stairs.”
“Thanks,” I said, turning to leave.
“I just told you where it was, I didn’t say you could go.”
And there it was. The Pivotal Moment. Knowing he wasn’t who he claimed to be was vastly different from him actually admitting to it….
CHAPTER TWO
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
Greg had been so engrossed in Chloe’s diary, he hadn’t heard her come back into the bedroom. She stood there in just a short towel wrapped around her slender body, her long blonde hair plastered to her shoulders. Guiltily he dropped the exercise-book and jumped to his feet.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have picked it up, but it was just there, I couldn’t help myself.”
A look of confusion passed over her pretty face. “What do you mean, just there?”
He gestured to the bedside-table on her side of the bed. “Just there.”
“That’s strange. I’m sure I put it back with my writing stuff in the office.”
“Baby, I’m really sorry. I should never have read it. Please don’t be mad at me, I think you’re incredibly brave and amazing for managing to survive such a horrific ordeal.”
He was aware how trite that sounded, but after everything she had been through, he figured that anything that came out his mouth would sound patronising.
He went to her and pulled her into his arms. She wasn’t exactly melting into him, but neither was she pulling away. Maybe there was hope for him yet and he wouldn’t be in the doghouse tonight.
“How far did you get? Did you read it all?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t get so far in.”
“Did you read about what he did to me? About what he made me do?”
He could hear the quiver in her voice, how near to tears she was. “No. I’m really sorry, Chlo, I promise I’ll never snoop on you again. I just wanted to know what you went through, wanted to understand a little better.”
“Are you jealous?”
His heart twisted in his chest and he drew her still-damp body closer against his bare chest.
“No, of course not,” he said, wanting that to be the complete truth.
Jealous struck him as too strong a word, but sometimes it made him a little insecure that she had been in love with someone else before him. And that she would still be with that someone if his life had not been cut tragically short. If he hadn’t of been murdered.
What if Scott had been the true love of her life and he was second best, nothing more than the consolation prize? It was a concern he kept to himself, but sometimes it ate away at him. He knew it was a selfish way to think but the thought of her heart secretly belonging to another man was too horrendous to contemplate.
Especially a pretty boy like Scott Jones, with his floppy blonde hair and big blue eyes. He looked like Leonardo Decaprio and I look like a fucking gorilla.
Immediately he felt like a complete tosser for even thinking such a thing. Chloe had been to hell and back, and there he was, getting anxious because he had a hairy chest and was about as far removed from ‘pretty’ as it was possible to get.
“I know you, Gregory Larson. You’re lying. Yes, I did love Scott, but I love you, too. Some people don’t even find true love once in their lives, I’ve been lucky enough to find it twice.”
And that he supposed, as far as explanations went, would have to do.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too. But don’t ever snoop on me again.”
“I promise,” he said, nuzzling his face into the side of her damp neck. God, she smelled so good, good enough to eat. His cock stirred against his boxers – the only item of clothing he wore. “It’s late, shall we go to bed?”
“In a minute,” she said, pulling away from him. “I haven’t finished in the bathroom yet.”
Greg tried not to let his disappointment show on his face.
She reached the bathroom door and turned round to face him. “You know what, Greg? I think I’m okay with you reading it. Maybe it’s a good thing. In fact, maybe you should finish it.”
He blinked, clearing his mind of lurid visions of fucking her from behind. “Finish it?”
“Sure. You want to spend the rest of your life with me, don’t you? You want to understand me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then finish it. I’m going to have a bath.”
“A bath? But you just had a shower.”
She giggled. “Yes, getting shampoo in the bath sucks. Now I’m going to deep-condition my hair and put on a facemask while you read my diary.”
Now that she had given him permission to read it, he wasn’t sure how he felt. She would expect him to come with an opinion when he was done. And what the hell was he supposed to say? Thanks a lot, I enjoyed reading it? Or, wow, that was some crazy shit, how the fuck are you still sane?
Greg was beginning to wish he’d never found the damn exercise-book.
“Did you think what you read was weird?” she asked.
“Weird? I think what happened to you is weird beyond words.”
“I mean the way I wrote it, like it was one of my novels?”
He thought about it for a moment, and now that she mentioned it, yeah, maybe he did a bit.
“No, I think it’s really cool. I guess it’s a good way to look at it objectively.”
She nodded her head enthusiastically. “Yeah, my sentiments exactly. I won’t be long.”
She blew him a kiss over her shoulder and shut the bathroom door behind her.
Greg sat back down on the bed, his shoulders sagging along with his hard-on.
Come on, he chided himself. This is a good thing. She’s never really gone into detail about that night, this is my chance to really get to know her.
Sighing heavily, he shuffled up the bed and shoved the pillows against the headboard, making himself comfortable.
Now, where was I? He scanned the page of handwriting to pick up where he had left off, re-reading the last couple of lines he had previously read to refresh his memory…
CHAPTER THREE
“Bathroom is through the door and up the stairs.”
“Thanks,” I said, turning to leave.
“I just told you where it was, I didn’t say you could go.”
And there it was. The Pivotal Moment. Knowing he wasn’t who he claimed to be was vastly different from him actually admitting to it.
My blood turned to ice in my veins but I made the conscious decisi
on to remain calm. Panicking never helped anyone, and I stood my ground.
I took a gulp of my whiskey like I didn’t have a care in the world. “Who are you?” I asked calmly.
“Honey, I’m your worst nightmare come true. I’m the bogeyman.”
His answer shocked me to the core but I refused to drop my gaze or show my fear. If I was a character in one of my books I would have been running screaming for the door by now.
And I’d also be very fucking dead.
“Where’s Scott?”
“He’s a little tied-up with his mummy.”
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice threatening to duck out on me. “What do you want?”
“Now we’re getting to the nitty-gritty of it, aren’t we?”
Shit, this was bad. I had inadvertently stumbled into the worst nightmare going and I didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on.
“Please…” I began, then instantly clamped my mouth shut. When my characters started saying ‘please’ to the killer they were as good as dead.
“Please? Please don’t kill you? Now why would I want to go and do a thing like that?”
Whether he meant to kill me, or not to kill me, I didn’t know. Neither was I about to ask.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but nothing’s happened yet. Nothing has to happen. Just let me and Scott walk away and we’ll pretend we never even came here tonight.”
“Walk away Scott free? I don’t think so. Although you could say the world is about to be Scott free…”
“Scott!” I bellowed at the top of my voice. “Where are you?”
“Scream all you want, bitch, no one can hear you. No one apart from the other guests, that is.”
“What do you want?” I wailed, forgetting all that stuff about keeping my cool.
“I want to see your blood flow, that’s what I want.”
My hand was trembling and sweating so much that the glass slipped through my fingers and shattered on the floorboards. “Keep away from me,” I said, thinking about spare set of car-keys I always kept in my bag in the god-damn car.
“What’s the matter, Chloe? You getting cold feet? Don’t you want to meet your future in-laws?”
“Fuck you,” I said.
As soon as it was out of my mouth, I knew it was a mistake.
“Don’t you ever talk to me like that, you little bitch.”
Then he was on me. One second he was on the sofa, the next he sprang up like a giant cat and lunged for me. I sprang into action, lunging for the door but he tackled me to the ground. I hit the floor with a nasty smack that stole my breath and knocked me sick. His weight bore down on top of me, crushing me against the unforgiving floorboards. I felt his breath on my neck as he whispered in my ear;
“You’re not going anywhere, baby-girl.”
My hands were wrenched behind my back, causing my shoulders to wrench painfully, but at least his weight had shifted off my back and I could breathe again. Dimly, I was aware of pressure at my wrists, of his weight on my backside. I heard what sounded like the rip of sticky-tape undoing, then a tightness at my wrists.
He carries sticky-tape with him? I wondered in a daze.
“There, almost done.”
The weight lifted off my back and suddenly there was just empty air where he had been seconds before.
My head reeled with the turn of events. This can’t be happening, I thought in a daze. I had turned into a victim in one of my books.
“Back in a minute.”
His voice no longer sounded near and I twisted round my head. Just that small movement sent shooting pains through my neck and I sucked in a shocked breath.
Relax, mind over matter, I reminded myself.
Trembling violently, I pulled myself into a sitting position and perched awkwardly on the side of my hip. Already, the pain in my neck was receding, because I was willing it to. Sometimes, the unique relationship I have between my body and my mind is incredibly useful.
My eyes darted around the room, not quite knowing what it was I was searching for.
Shit, shit, shit, I thought, close to spiralling down into a never-ending well of panic. I forced myself to calm down, to think rationally.
Where had he gone? What was he doing? I was pretty sure he had disappeared through the same door that led to the kitchen I had never seen.
Right on cue, that very same door swung open and I gasped. He had his back to me and was dragging something – even before I saw what it was, I knew what it would be.
Or rather, who… Or should I say, if I were to guess who it was, I would have a one in three chance of getting it right…
The man puffed and grunted as he dragged the body into the room by the ankles. As he neared, I saw who he was dragging.
“Scott,” I gasped, my heart pounding in terror.
My fiancé looked very dead and the room swam in and out of focus with the shocking sight. At least there was no blood on him that I could see, not that that meant anything.
The most miserable sounding moan escaped his lips and I breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t dead.
Yet…
The bastard dragged him to where I sat then dropped his ankles to the floor. Without saying a word he marched right back to the kitchen, the door shutting behind him.
Scott’s arms were flung over his blonde head in the way they sometimes did when he was sleeping off too much booze and his eyelids fluttered, like they were trying to open.
“Scott? Can you hear me?”
He groaned some more, his eyes finally opening.
“Scott. Thank God. How badly are you hurt? What did he do to you?”
“Hit me on head… Christ, fucking hurts.”
He went to sit up, his torso and neck trembling with the effort, but it was obviously too much for him and he seemed to give up and lay there panting. He pressed the palms of his hands against his face, his elbows pointing skywards.
“Who is he?” I whispered.
When Scott removed his hands I saw the tears glistening in his eyes. My heart broke at the sight of his mental and physical struggle and I ached to hold him, or at least cradle his head in my lap but there was nothing I could do with my hands lashed behind my back.
I can’t untie myself yet…
Who is he, Scott?” I asked again, shuffling closer.
“I don’t fucking know,” he said. His voice sounded thick and slurry. “Oh God, Mum and Dad… Mum, shit, my mum…”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, it seemed to lend him strength and he hauled himself into a sitting position. I decided in that moment to rid myself of the sticky-tape round my wrists. I hadn’t freed myself up until this point purely because I was still assessing the situation. Once I freed myself, I would be forced to act.
Fuck it, I thought, effortlessly curling my spine and slipping my bound wrists under my rump with room to spare.
You could call me a freak of nature. Many have. In my early-twenties, I made a living as a contortionist. I am one of those people that can fold themselves up like a deckchair. Most contortionists are either categorized as frontbenders or backbenders, depending on the direction in which their spine is most flexible. Relatively few performers are equally adept at both. I am one of the few. My unique ability and pretty face led me down a path I am not particularly proud of – I made quite a name for myself in the BDSM photography scene. It’s not as sleazy it sounds, I hasten to add. Because I was so in demand, I was like a supermodel in fetish photography circles. I was high-end; think Betty Paige or Dita Von Teese. Usually I got to keep my knickers on and I was paid thousands for a shoot.
But I digress. Now my hands were in front of me, I was able to gnaw through the tape and in seconds my hands were free.
Shit, now what?
I knew I hadn’t properly thought it through, but it was too late now.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said, helping Scott to his feet. “Where’s the landline? We need to call the police.”
I was in good shape, but my muscles trembled with the effort of supporting his weight.
“Phone is in the kitchen,” he said, wincing with each word. “There’s another one upstairs.”
I stifled the irritation I felt towards him. Why on earth would I go upstairs searching for the landline?
“Then we need to get to the car and get our mobiles.”
I had a clear vision of where we had left them, tucked in the space behind the gearstick.
“My mum…”
I steered him towards the door. “We need to get help, Scott. You’re in no fit state to fight…”
My words were cut short by the sound of the kitchen door opening and my insides turned to ice.
I should’ve gone by myself, I thought uncharitably. I could’ve been at the car by now…
“And where do you think you’re going?”
Shit, shit, shit.
Slowly, I turned round to face him. My stomach plummeted when I saw the gun pointing at us.
“Why the fuck would you untie her, Scott? That was really fucking stupid. “In fact…”
A gunshot rang out and I screamed in shock. I thought it was me that had been shot and fully expected an explosion of pain to follow a few seconds after the gun had been fired.
There was no pain, and empty air where Scott had just been leaning against me.
“Scott,” I gasped, falling to my knees next to him.
He lay unmoving on his front and instinctively I reached down to feel for a pulse at his neck. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief when I felt his heartbeat flutter beneath my fingertips. A puddle of blood was expanding around his shin, seeping into the joins between the floorboards like mini rivers.
“I can’t believe the silly cunt untied you,” grumbled the man. “Lie on your front, you won’t get loose a second time.”
You wanna bet, fuck-face?
Passively, I lay down on my front, gritting my teeth against the discomfort of my large breasts mashing against the unforgiving floorboards. The rip of the sticky-tape unravelling almost made me smile – there was absolutely nothing on God’s earth he could bind round my wrists that would keep my arms behind my back. I locked my elbows, giving the impression I had ‘normal’ joints and he was pulling my arms back as far as they would go and finding the point of natural resistance. Not knowing I was a contortionist, he only bothered winding the tape a few inches above my wrist bones so I had acres of room to slip my hands under my backside when the time came.