Behind the Facade (3 page)

 
Sean had been completely incensed when he’d heard the alarm go
off and had seen her fleeing the car, though his wrath had been directed mainly
at himself for being too complacent and giving her an opening no matter how
small. It had clearly been a mistake to leave her out of sight. Hastily
dropping his few purchases he’d deactivated the alarm and pursued her with
vigour. He’d had no doubt he would catch her but was shocked at what had nearly
taken place. Fortunately the car had not stopped and the driver had simply
flashed his lights and tooted his horn long and loudly as he continued past.

 
Shaking his head he stared down at her. “You mad lass!” he said
to her “What the hell were you thinking?” This hardly required an answer. Tears
began to course down her face as her stunned mind reasserted itself and the
enormity of her close call, coupled with her aggravated situation, truly
registered.

 
They were both breathing hard, blood coursing furiously and his
body was pressed down on hers. Sean’s fury abated and in its place, to his
chagrin, his body decided to ambush him with feelings of arousal. He saw a
flicker of fearful awareness enter her eyes as she recognised the intimacy of
their situation and sudden heat in his gaze. She thrashed against him, which
only served to heighten his sudden animal desire to overwhelm her. He was
usually so self-controlled and was appalled by how much effort it took to clamp
down on this. He quickly moved his body away from her before he lost the
ability to control the feelings she had incited. Gritting his teeth he picked
her up, slung her effortlessly over one shoulder, and made his way back to the
parked car.

 
Kate had been too relieved to fight when he had removed himself
and lifted her onto his shoulder. Now he laid her roughly back in the passenger
seat of the car. As after-shock set in she felt nausea rising in her throat.

 
“I’m going to be sick!” she exclaimed. She leaned to the side
and dispossessed her stomach of its meagre contents whilst he watched her
without compassion.

 
Once she was done and had retired body shaking back into the
seat, he retrieved the bag of food and drinks he’d dumped in his rush to
apprehend her. The other car had driven over it and the sandwiches he’d
purchased were just a squashed mess. However, a bottle of water remained intact
and he opened it and allowed her to take a swallow. This respite lasted mere
seconds though.

 
He soon reclaimed the bottle and then stood over her, his face
sullen. He started to remove his belt. Her body tensed, rigid in shock. He
clearly intended to punish her by acting on the urges she had inadvertently
inspired in him. She hadn’t thought she could be more afraid of this man.

 
Staring at him, her eyes blossoming with terror, she opened her
mouth to scream when his next action surprised her, cutting off the scream that
had already started whistling from her
throat .
He
simply secured the belt under her breasts and then around her arms, pinning her
firmly to the seat. He then leaned away from her to scrutinise his work.
Satisfied she was completely immobilised he looked up into her face. 

 
Pale, with patches of mud on her face and neck from her
encounter with the ditch, she was far from the blithe, immaculately groomed
girl she had been. Her hair hung limply and was sticking in damp tendrils to
her cheeks and her dress was twisted and dirty. His eyes were drawn to her
mouth, which seemed swollen. A trickle of blood had escaped from a small lesion
on her bottom lip. Even in such a state, in fact almost because of it, he was
struck by how starkly beautiful she was.

 
He hastily looked away and down at her hands, disconcerted by
the effect she had on him. How had she possibly managed to free herself from
her bonds? He lifted her hands to see if he could determine how she had
liberated them. Weak, she still tried to pull away. He held firm and when she
cried out in pain he turned them over to examine her wrists and swore.

 
Contemplating the damage to them he clicked his tongue against
his teeth, noting how sore and red her skin was.
“
Jaysus
!
You’re a piece of work,” he commented, the
Irish burr strong in his voice.

 
She looked up at him, tears welling in her frightened eyes.
“Please,” she whispered, “please don’t hurt me.”

 
He dropped her hands and regarded her. It must have taken some
courage to attempt the escape. He was momentarily struck by admiration.
However, he could not afford to take pity on her, especially when he found her
unnervingly attractive and was in danger of letting this influence him.

“Pull any
more stunts like that last one and I won’t be responsible for my actions. Do
you understand?”

She
raised her head at this and gave him a look of hollow hopelessness. “Why should
I do as you say? If I don’t try and tell someone about that bomb before you set
it off, who will?”

She
thought him some kind of psycho. He couldn’t bear the recrimination he saw in
her face and the fictitious bomb threat was now fuelling her desire to escape.

 
“There is no bomb,” he admitted suddenly.

“You’re lying,”
she countered immediately. But somehow the way he had announced this sounded
sincere.

“No,” he
said “Really. I’m not. I had my own reasons for entering that building, none of
which were to do with planting a bomb.”

 
“Why… why lie?” she asked, puzzled and struggling to come to
terms with this unexpected revelation and what it might mean.

“What
other means did I have at the time of making sure you’d co-operate? Besides,
I’m Irish. It didn’t take much to convince you that I was a terrorist, did it?”
 

She could
not think of anything to say to this, accepting his logic but left wondering,
if there was no bomb, why had he been there? Why had he kidnapped her? He was a
dangerous man. He’d clearly been up to something in Robert’s building he wanted
no-one to know about. She could only surmise that he had been committing some
other crime.

“What
about Rob?” she asked. “What did you do to him? Is he OK?”

He
frowned, not immediately sure to whom she referred.

"My
fiancé," she pressed. "He went into the building. I thought it was
him returning when..." she trailed off as comprehension dawned in his
eyes, followed by a black look she translated as meaning bad news.

"Is
he dead?!" she cried, suddenly desperate.

Sean
looked at her, debating whether to be truthful on this point. In the end he
simply pressed his lips together and shrugged. "He got in the way."

She
interpreted this as he intended her to and lunged for him, shrieking "You
bastard!"

She was
inevitably hampered from getting to him by the opposing pull of her restraint.
“See, there’s no one left to save, so there’s no point in trying to run. You’ll
only cause yourself more grief.”

She sank
dejectedly back against the seat, sobbing. “You should have just let that car
hit me.”

He could
have hardly expected any other reaction and had to harden himself to her
misery. Really it was a bonus that she now believed her fiancé dead. Now she
should be less inclined to make any more foolhardy attempts to escape.

Turning
away from her he said heartlessly, “You’re right. It would have solved a lot of
problems for both of us.”

He stood
and stepped out of the car and as he did so caught sight of the cigarette
lighter and frayed cord on the passenger seat floor. He picked them up and
flung them aside in disgust. He couldn’t really blame her for making a bid for
freedom, though he had not expected her to attempt one so soon or one that had
required such guts and initiative. Who’d have thought she‘d use the damn
cigarette lighter, of all things, to free herself?

He filled
the car with the petrol he’d obtained, slammed the door and returned to his
seat. He finished the water in one long, fortifying gulp, regretting it wasn’t
something stronger. Wiping a hand across his mouth, he smothered an involuntary
chuckle, on the verge of hysterical laughter after all that had happened. How
in God’s name had things got so outrageously complicated?

He
glanced across at the girl. All the fight seemed to have left her now; her head
was down and she appeared completely defeated. He felt an almost paralyzing
pang of guilt. What the fuck are you doing! His brain screamed at him.
He’d
managed to talk himself out of getting arrested by the police, but at what
cost? Breaking and entering was nothing in comparison with abduction.

He
started the car up
again,
hoping driving would give
his thoughts some time to settle. The decision to keep the girl with him
against her will was already beginning to feel like the worst decision he had
ever made.

Katherine
felt sick at heart. The mental and physical energy she had invested in her
escape, the shock of the near accident and the ruthlessness of her recapture
had all combined to leave her feeling drained and exhausted. Her body was
aching and sore but she felt detached from the pain. She had not allowed
herself to contemplate failure. A slow tear slid down her cheek and a numbing
despair crept over her mind, like a cloying winter fog.

The sky
had cleared and the moon was now a bright, baleful eye in the sky, providing
more shadows than illumination. They had left the city behind and were
travelling through wooded countryside. Sean studied where he was and pondered
whether to take the motorway, which would risk his passenger getting a fix on
the route they were taking. He could do something to rule out this problem.

Before
heading for the motorway he pulled over, delved about in the glove box and
brought out a pair of sunglasses and some masking tape that would do the job.
He blinded the glasses using the tape and then placed them on the girl’s face.
Kate flinched slightly as he did so but was unable to remove them because of
her restraints.

Kate’s
sight was now completely restricted. The darkness, on top of everything else,
was unnerving but her mind insisted that she should not give up hope. Left in
the dark with
her own
tumbling thoughts, it suddenly
struck her that it may not be a vain hope; the only reason he would want her
blind was if he was worried about what she would see. Surely this offered some
promise that he might not kill her? She tried not to undermine this fragile
hope by dwelling on what fate might await her instead.

As it was
very late at night the motorway proved relatively traffic free. However, he
curtailed his usual tendency to exceed the speed limit, keeping within the
70mph restriction. He didn’t want to risk unwanted police attention merely by
speeding. Soon enough, he’d arrived at the place he had been heading for and
was pulling into a long, stony driveway flanked by sprawling vegetation and
tall, tired-looking spruce trees. The drive led to a large, modern,
glass-fronted building with a neat, compact garage attached to it which seemed
incongruous in the wild, untamed surroundings. Sean drove around the back of
the house and parked up. He climbed out of the car, locked it and headed
towards the garage.

He
glanced through the side window, noticing with satisfaction that there was no
vehicle occupying it. He then checked out the house. There were no lights or
sounds emanating from it and it seemed completely deserted but he tried the
doorbell just to be sure. Once he’d established there was no-one home, he used
the key he still had to unlock the door and he disengaged the alarm. He was
pleased to find that neither the alarm code nor the locks had been changed
since he last visited. Something had gone his way at long last.

Returning
to the car, he released
the belt that bound Kate
to the car seat and scooped her into his arms. She wriggled in protest but the
words, “I’ll happily drop you on your arse, if you don’t stay still,” put paid
to this.

He tried
to minimise the physical contact by carrying her as he would carry some large,
inanimate object and staring straight ahead. However, when he stumbled on a
fallen tree branch she disarmed him by gripping hard on his neck and pulling
her body closer to his. He grimaced inwardly. Why did she have to keep
reminding him that she was not just a bloody troublesome complication but a
human being as well?

 
Sean carried her into the
house along a short hallway and up a steep, spiralling flight of wooden stairs.
He entered a bedroom containing twin beds and placed her down on one of them.
With him looming over her she didn’t dare risk any attempt to vacate the bed.
She simply crouched there shivering, waiting for his next move, eyes wide and
skittish. She looked like a survivor of some catastrophe with her dirty, torn
dress and bruised body. He couldn’t leave her like this. He made a decision.
Pulling her towards him by her feet, despite her resistance, he forced her off
the bed yanked her upright and shoved her into the bathroom.

 
“Get cleaned up and I’ll get you something to wear.” He stalked
out of the room, glancing at the door on his way out to ensure that there was
no internal lock.