Sadly, a gift that none but I will know.
However, not sadly, some of that talent must have transferred to me. Formerly untapped, I can sense it, lying latent, waiting for the spark that will start the fire and reveal the hidden darkness of the room.
Or, at least—reveal the thing that Hugh is hiding in all these sheets.
--
Another half day goes by and I’ve made no tangible process. It’s infuriating, feeling that I’m close to a discovery but being unable to reach out and grasp it.
I look outside. The May sun is shining in earnest. It makes me think of beaches and palm trees and ocean-side summer parties. It makes me think of the time Jeremy and I spent on his yacht, then on his island, almost half a year ago.
I want to go away with him again. Forget all this, and just float in the bliss that his touch can provide. Get away from the frenzy, the people, and the noise.
But isn’t this what I envisioned for myself before I met Jeremy? Isn’t this what I thought I wanted when I was still in school?
Damn! Nobody says I cannot have both. I can ask Jeremy to whisk us away. We’ll return to his tropical paradise. We’ll spend a few nights there, and come back to work. He’s mobile. He can run his company from anywhere. And I am too. To be honest, at the moment I feel totally useless.
No, I’m not going to ask for a getaway just yet. Not until I uncover whatever it is that’s staring me in the face.
But I do need a little break. I push up, off the table, lock the door, and go downstairs and outside.
Immediately, I feel refreshed. The sun feels wonderful against my skin. I wander through the crowds of people, enjoying the sense of anonymity that comes from being one in a thousand.
I start to walk faster, thinking hard. My mind keeps going back to Hugh’s papers. What are they? What’s hidden there? What is—
I stop. I look around me. The crowds have gone. I’m alone at the entrance of a shabby alley.
How did I get here? I look around. There are a few pedestrians still on the street. A car or two drives by. There is the Stonehart building in the distance, dominating the city skyline. But, by God, it’s far away. How lost must I have been in my own thoughts to come this far?
I don’t like this place. I get eerie vibes similar to the time I found myself lost and alone in Jeremy’s mountain home.
I turn around, wanting to get back amongst people, away from the shadows, into the sun.
A white van screeches to a halt in front of me. The doors open. Three masked men jump out.
Before I know what’s happening, they’ve grabbed me.
I try to scream but a rag is shoved in my mouth. I struggle against my assailants but I can’t get free.
A sack is thrown over my head. A harsh, chemical smell surrounds me. Chloroform?
Immediately, I feel myself fading. The struggle stops. My limbs give out. I fall back, am caught, and carried inside. The last sound I hear is the vehicle door sliding shut.
--
I come to with a gasp. I open my eyes, but cannot see. I am blindfolded.
I try to move. My arms are locked behind my body. My legs are tethered to the floor. I’m sitting, upright, in a chair, bound in place.
Panic rises up and threatens to consume me.
I thrash about. I rip my head back and forth, trying to get the blindfold to slide off. It’s no use. Struggling is no use either. I’m bound tight.
The instinct to fight claws through me like an angry cat. I keep thrashing, back and forth, trying to get free but knowing, even in my desperation, that I can’t.
A light comes on. Right above me. I see it through the fabric of my blindfold.
My breathing is ragged. Forced. I jerk my head up—and freeze when I hear footsteps approaching.
“Well, well, well. It looks like the bitch is up.”
The voice is male. Deep. Accented and menacing. Middle Eastern? Maybe.
“Who are you?” I ask. “What do you want?”
A chair scrapes across the floor. It’s a vile sound, worse than nails on a chalkboard. It stops right beside me. I feel the man sit, just inches away.
Something cold touches my neck. I recoil.
“N—n—nuh,” the voice cautions. “Careful, now. We wouldn’t want you to cut an artery.”
I freeze. The cold object? It’s a blade.
Nightmares of the time Stonehart did that to me come back unbidden. They flash through my mind like brilliant specters.
“Who are you?” I whisper. I’m afraid to speak loudly. I’m afraid to even breathe, with the blade pressing into my skin. The slightest unexpected movement…
“In time,” the voice tells me. “Answers will be given in time. For now, you must be patient.”
The knife is taken away. I sag, the most terrible yet grateful relief surging through me.
I strain to see through the blindfold. The little gap by my nose makes the floor and my legs visible. Barely.
It’s a cement floor. The cold—I can feel the cold emanating from it.
I swallow. My worst fears from when I first found myself in the dark, with Jeremy, are coming true. Back then, I was grateful not to be in a dingy basement. Now, that is exactly where I am.
I hear water dripping from a pipe, somewhere behind me.
“Where—where are we?” I repeat. “Why did you bring me here?”
“To uncover your secrets,” the man tells me.
He stands. I feel—hear—him do it. He comes behind me. My back tenses as he places two hands on my shoulders.
He brings his mouth to my ear. “I hear,” he says, “that there are some who would pay a king’s ransom to keep you safe. Unfortunately…” He begins to untie the knot holding the blindfold in place. “it is not money we are after, but information. So you see, my sweet, how your fate is entirely in your own hands.”
The blindfold falls to my neck.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” the man says. He walks away. “For the time being, I ask you to think on your sins.”
Chapter Ten
LILLY
I twist my head around as soon as I can. All I glimpse of the man is his back. He opens a door and disappears on the other side.
The sound of it closing echoes all around me, amplified by the vast space of this dungeon.
I see the place I’m in. It fills me with horror: Four faraway walls, on all sides of me. Pipes crisscrossing above me. The light coming from a sequence of fluttering light bulbs embedded in the ceiling.
Graffiti marks the walls. Water stains and rust and chipping paint abound. There’s more than one door: three, in fact.
Everything is grimy and dark. A sharp metallic tang fills the air. The soft, consistent drip-drop of water falling mocks me in its serenity.
I look down, at my body. I’m still wearing the same clothes as I left the office in.
How much time has passed since then? No more than a few hours, surely. That means I’m still in San Jose. That means that I am somewhere close to Jeremy.
The man said he wanted information. No. Not him. “We.”
His group. More than one. Three men abducted me. There was also a driver.
How many am I up against?
Panic starts to take hold. I see no way out. Those doors—those three metal doors—they are the only way into this prison. Into it, or out.
I scream and thrash again. I throw my head back and forth. I try to rip my arms free from behind me. I try to kick my legs out.
It’s no use. I’m bound to the chair. The only thing my struggle accomplishes is worsening the raw marks around my wrists.
I’m terrified. I’m trembling. I’m cold, too. Dammit! It’s not supposed to be cold in California in May! But there’s no heat in this place. The concrete walls, the floors, the ceiling leech it all away.
And I thought I’d never find myself prisoner again. I thought that I was safe from that with Jeremy.
But Jeremy isn’t behind this. Who is? I don’t kn
ow.
Uncertainty makes things unbearable.
Terror fills me. Claws at me. Devours me. I try to rack my brain to think. But I—I can’t. I’m paralyzed by fear. It’s worsened by the solemnity of this place.
My screams echo back to my ears. I don’t know if anybody outside can even hear me. This…this sewer, this bunker…is not meant for letting people out—only keeping people in.
--
I’m freezing cold. My teeth are chattering. There’s no warmth. All of it has been seeped out of me. Into what? Into this terrible, isolated ward.
I’ve given up trying to break loose. There’s simply no chance. The plastic straps that dig into my wrists are unbreakable. The cables binding my legs are much the same.
I have to piss.
“Aaargh!” I grind my teeth and scream with frustration. My mind is running circles around what these people might want from me.
I know nothing about them. Not who they are, not what organization they represent. I keep going over what precious few facts I have.
The white van. It must have trailed me since I left the Stonehart Building. From my own stupidity I ventured into an unknown, shady party of the city. But dammit, kidnappings aren’t supposed to take place in broad daylight! I thought the biggest thing I had to worry about were the cameras that might be following me.
This couldn’t have been a spur-of-the-moment thing, either. These people know who I am. They know I am linked to Jeremy. Otherwise, why would the man mention the ransom? He could only be referring to Stonehart.
And yet, that’s not what they want. If they’re not after cash, then Jesus, it means they are being funded.
By a rival firm? What else? That’s the only thing that makes any sense.
Robin’s words from long ago came back to me. Stonehart Industries has dirty secrets. My mind stampedes down the most awful paths.
Mob ties. Gangsters. Weapons, drugs, and violence. That is the only thing I can think of that allows me to make sense of all this.
Shit, I’m scared. They want information. What kind of information? Not the sort that I have, most surely. If it’s about Stonehart Industries, I don’t know a thing! I’ve only been there for a few months.
A new, even more terrifying thought occurs. Jeremy sent me away that one time to protect me from danger. I thought the danger had already passed.
What if the threat was precisely this?
A door swings open. I whip my head around.
A masked man comes in. Someone new.
Only his eyes are visible. He’s a hulking behemoth of a human. A veritable giant. He’d even makes Jeremy seem small by comparison.
“You must be hungry,” he says. He tosses a metal container to the floor. “Here. Eat.”
He has the same crude accent as the first man. Definitely Arabic.
He kneels behind me. I feel a tug, hear a snip, and the next thing I know, my hands are free.
Like a bear he comes around me. A bear with one massive claw. In his hand is a curving saber the length of my arm.
He points with it to a door across from us. “The lavatory,” he grunts. The blade touches the cords around my leg. “You will sleep on the floor. Do you understand?” He leans closer until his face is no more than an inch away from mine. “When I let you go, you will not fight. You will not try to run. Yes?” The tip of his blade presses into my foot. “Or else you will lose two precious, little feet.” His eyes search mine. His knife presses even deeper. “Yes?”
I swallow, and nod as quickly as I can. “Y—yes,” I stammer.
“Good.” The man stands. I scream when, without warning, he swings his blade like a scythe in an undercut thought the air.
It thuds to a halt in the bottom of the wooden seat of the chair. Right beneath my legs. His eyes dance.
“Now,” he says. “You are free to go.”
He pulls the saber out and walks away. In the long time it takes me to get my courage back, I nearly faint twice.
Chapter Eleven
LILLY
I look down between my legs. The cords are severed. I am actually free.
I rise, slowly. My whole body is on edge. I cannot help the terrible trembling that buzzes through me with the force of a nest of wasps.
I make it four steps forward before my knees give out. I fall to the side.
Cold, I think. So very, very cold.
I huddle into myself and shiver, right there on the floor.
Being here opens the floodgates to all the memories and associations that I’ve repressed. I feel like I’m right back in the sunroom, the collar tight around my neck. Everything that I’ve experienced with Jeremy since then feels like a fever dream.
I try to summon my strength. It doesn’t come. How could it, after all the things that have been done to me in the past year? I’ve moved from being one person’s pawn to another’s. My strength isn’t going to save me now.
Nothing is.
I feel despair building. I know it is a most dangerous emotion.
The crow, the shack in the woods, being rescued by Paul are things I called upon last in my time of need. Memories that reminded me of the strength I possessed.
They are futile now.
Jeremy. I want Jeremy. I know Jeremy can save me. Jeremy can get me out of this. Some way, somehow. If it’s possible, Jeremy will do it.
Those thoughts calm me. Somewhat. I still feel strung tight, but I’m no longer shaking.
I push up to my hands and knees. I take a deep breath. That scent—the smell of rusted metal—reminds me of corrosion and death.
And what if it’s impossible? A sinister voice asks me. What if Jeremy fails?
If Jeremy fails… then all the lights in my life have been extinguished.
I pad on my hands and knees over the floor toward the tin of food.
It’s a lunchbox. One made of cold, dented steel. It’s so industrial, so military, that it frightens me.
My hands shake as I open the front latch.
There’s a sandwich inside. Sloppily put together, just two pieces of bread around a tiny slice of deli meat. A bag of Lays is beside it. There is a metal canister of drink at the top.
I reach for the bottle. Twist open the lid. Bring it to my lips, still half-dazed. Take a sip, swallow—and immediately gag.
It’s motor oil.
I fall to the side, my insides clenching with pain, and hurl up everything I’ve eaten over the last two days.
Laughter comes from behind me. I open my eyes, weak, and drag my head toward the sound. Big Man is back, filling the doorway. He throws a clear water bottle to me. It rolls on the floor and comes to a stop in the middle of my puddle of puke.
He turns and slams the door, the loud, jarring sound making me start with horrible anxiety.
Black liquid from the canister runs down the slope toward me. The slick stickiness clings to my hands and gets on my clothes. I swallow, try not to breathe too deeply, try not to taste my vomit on my tongue, and reach for the water bottle with black-stained fingers. I drag the lunchbox away, huddle in a corner, and pick at my meager meal.
--
The next morning I am awakened by a boot in my side.
“Up,” a voice hisses. “Get up. It’s time to smile for the camera.”
Before I know it, I’m being lifted by two men and dragged toward an empty chair.
There’s a tripod positioned in front of it. A camcorder with a single red, flashing light stares me in the face.
“Your name,” the operator demands.
“Wh—what?”
“You name!” he exclaims, and backhands me across the face.
The two men holding me snicker.
“L—Lilly Ryder,” I manage, weakly.
“Lilly Ryder.” The man says. I recognize his voice as that of the first assailant. “And where are you right now, Lilly Ryder?”
“I—I don’t know,” I mutter.
“Whore!” The man screams. He hits me again.
A hand from one of the men behind me grasps me by the chin and forces my face toward the lens. And that small, evil red light.
“Describe it,” the first man tells me. “Tell the world of your new lodgings. Tell Jeremy Stonehart.”
My breath catches. “Jeremy?” I say.
“This fucking woman,” the man mutters, shaking his head. He turns the camera off. He sits opposite me and stares at me.
His two cronies holding me make me sit up.
“This,” the first man says, from behind the dark fabric of his mask, “is how things are going to proceed. I will ask you a question. You will look at the camera and give your response. Do you understand?”
“What do you want?” I manage.
The man gives an angry hiss. The hand tightens around my neck.
“No,” he gestures at whoever’s holding me. “No, don’t hurt her. We have to make her understand, first, what the danger of non-compliance is.”
The hand falls away, and I can breathe again.
The first man addresses me. “Lilly,” he says. “Lilly Ryder. What is contained in that name?” He spreads one hand open before me. “To me?” He lifts the bottom of his mask up and spits to one side. “It is nothing. You…” He points a finger at me. “…are worth nothing. My employer…” He chuckles. “…thinks that you exhibit extraordinary influence over Mr. Stonehart. He is the one we are after. So, if you comply, perhaps…” He shrugs. “…you will get out of this alive. But…” His voice takes on a menacing tone. “…if you do not, you will have no chance. Now then. The way we go, is entirely up to you. But I can promise you one thing, Miss Ryder. If you do not conform, the death that takes you will not be quick. It will not be pleasant. Remember that the next time you speak out of turn.”
He leans back and positions the camera between his legs again. He points it at me and turns it on. “Shall we try once more? What is your name?”
I glue my eyes to the floor. “Lilly Ryder.”
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 99