Diners, Dives & Dead Ends (35 page)

He removed his hand and
opened the trunk to grab a bungee cord lying on the floor of the cargo area.

I screamed again. 

Then I lost consciousness.

The left side of my face
throbbed.  I’d never felt pain like that before, and if I had my way, I never
would again.  He clocked me so hard, I was afraid my jaw was broken.

I slowly opened my eyes.  I
was bound in a fetal position on a concrete floor.  A basement, maybe.  My
hands, tied tight in front of me, were tingling.  My feet were also tied together. 

I tried to pry my wrists
apart, but the knots held firm. 

I struggled to sit up and
the pain was blinding.  Bile rose up, but I choked it back, trying not to pass
out.  Gray concrete walls and floor surrounded me.  There was a cheap wooden
door on the wall in front of me and a bare half window to my left.  A furnace
and hot water tank sat in one corner.  The only light in the room came from a
single old fashioned bulb dangling above my head.  The basement was completely
bare of furniture, appliances, boxes, or tools.  

I didn’t see my bag anywhere,
either.  So no pepper spray or stun gun to subdue Steve. 

The floorboards above me
squeaked.  A minute later the door in front of me opened and Steve stepped into
the room with a plastic container in his hands.  He walked gingerly, so as not
to upset whatever was in the bowl.

He squatted before me, setting
the bowl down next to him.  It contained water and a washcloth.  He squeezed
water out of the rag and brought it toward my face. 

I flinched and backed away. 
Then I steeled myself, vowing I wouldn’t show my fear again. 

“I just want to put this on
your jaw, Rose.  I’m so sorry I had to hit you.”  He applied the cool cloth to
my face.

“You didn’t have to,” I
said.  My jaw ached with every word.

“You didn’t leave me any
choice.  I couldn’t let you scream, now could I?”  He sounded so calm and
reasonable.  He wasn’t hiding anger the way Sullivan had.  Steve was perfectly
pleasant—it wasn’t an act.  Chills crept up my spine.

“Why am I here, Steve?”  I
had nothing to fight him with, not even my body at this point.  The only thing
I could do was keep reminding him that I was Rose, a person, someone he knew
and kind of liked.

“Because this is the only
way I can get your attention.  With Axton back, I knew I wouldn’t see you
anymore.”  He wet the rag, wrung it out, and reapplied it to my bruised,
swollen skin.

“You could have gotten it
another way, Steve.”

He pulled the rag away and
gave me a cold look.  “Don’t pull that bullshit, Rose.  I asked you out and you
kept turning me down.”

“So you kidnapped me
instead?”

He brought the cloth back to
my jaw.  “I tried to get your attention other ways.  But you always ignored
me.”  He used a little more force when he said the words, causing me to groan
and pull back.

“Sorry.”  He immediately
regulated the pressure. 

“What ways?”

“I saw Sullivan come out of
your apartment.  Be honest, Rose, you had more of a relationship with him than
you let on.  And that lawyer was up in your apartment for a long time.  That’s
the night I broke your car window.  I didn’t want to, but knowing he’d touched
you made me so angry.”

“We just talked.  And I’ve
never had a relationship with Sullivan.”

“I won’t tolerate lying.  Be
honest with me.”

“I’m serious, Steve.  I
never even kissed Sullivan.”

He continued to stare at me
before smiling once again.  “Okay then, but you let the lawyer fuck you, right?” 
He dipped the rag and brought it back to my jaw.

Oh my dear Lord, I was
dealing with a psycho.  How could I have not seen that he was crazy pants? 
He’d seemed like a perfectly nice guy.

“Rose,” he said in a
conversational tone, “did you fuck him?” 

I shook my head.  “No.”

“Good.”  He dropped the rag
back into the bowl with a plop.  Water splashed over my knee and onto the
floor.  “What about that guy from the band, the one with the holes in his
ears?  I saw him outside your apartment, along with the lawyer the other
night.  Were you doing both of them at the same time?”

“No.”

He reached out and stroked
my hair.  “You’re so beautiful.  Every man wants you, Rose.  Even Eric.”

“Steve,” I said, phrasing my
words carefully.  “Eric is just my friend.”

His hand left my hair and
strayed to my neck, which was still bruised from the other night’s fiasco.  “I
know.  But he wants to be so much more.”  He brushed his thumb over my collar
bone.  “I drove by and saw you at his house.  I looked through the window and watched
the two of you hug and kiss.” 

“I don’t remember—”

“That was the night I broke
into your apartment.  I was so upset you let him hold you like that.  I regret
my lack of self-control.”

I suddenly felt very cold. 
Kidnapping me, hitting me, tying me up in his basement—that wasn’t a lack of
self-control? 

“I forgive you.  Maybe if
you untie me, we can talk like two people.  Like Rose and Steve,” I said, as
casually as I could manage.

“Right.  I went to all this
trouble to get you here and I’m just going to untie you?”  He pushed his face
toward mine, his eyes hard behind his lenses, his lips compressed.  “Do not
treat me like a fool.” 

Panic started to rise and I
thought I might start hyperventilating.  I inhaled as slowly as I could, then
exhaled.  “I won’t.  But why am I here, Steve?”

He ran a finger along my
bruised jaw.  “I want to give you the chance to get to know me.  You never gave
me a chance.  There are things I want you to know.  Things I want to say to
you.”

“I want to get to know you,”
I said as sincerely as I could muster.

He smiled.  “Good.  We’ll
have lots of time together.”

It hit me then that he didn’t
intend for me to ever leave.  He would never let me go.  He’d either kill me or
keep me a prisoner in this basement forever.  I felt tears sting my eyes and
blinked rapidly to keep them from falling.

I wanted to keep him
talking.  Knowledge was power, I reminded myself.  “You can say anything to me,
Steve.” 

He sat back on his heels and
regarded me with steady eyes.  “No,” he said after several minutes, “I don’t
think you’re ready to listen yet.”  He picked up his bowl and left.  I heard a
lock slam into place.

Hours passed.  The pain in
my face dulled to throbbing ache.  When he came back it was still dark out. 
This time he brought a bottle of water, a handful of tissues, and an empty
bowl.  “I figured you might need to go to the little girl’s room,” he said,
setting the bowl on the floor.

I held out my hands for him
to untie me.  My stomach clenched.  How was I going to subdue him and get out
of here with my feet bound?  I didn’t know, but this might be my chance to get
free.

“No.”  He smiled.  “I’ll
help you.”

I didn’t want him touching
me, let alone see me with my pants down.  But I had to pee, so I decided to
suck it up.  Since he’d last left, I had resolved to do whatever it took to
stay alive.  I knew it would get much worse than this.  My only goal was
survival.

I focused on a crack in the
wall as he unfastened my jeans and yanked them down.  Although he seemed
clinical and detached from the whole process, having him touch me like that was
the most humiliating moment of my life. 

When it was over, he
unscrewed the water bottle and held it to my mouth.  I eagerly drank a third of
the bottle, dribbling a little on my chin.  He wiped it away with the back of
his hand.  Then he left, taking the bottle and the pee bowl with him.

I managed to doze off and on,
but awoke every time my chin dipped toward my chest. 

I kept an eye on the
window.  It was too small to crawl through, and we were too far below ground to
actually see anything but tall grass, but I could tell it wasn’t as dark now,
and slowly, light crept into the room.

Steve came down again with
the bottle of water in one hand and a small white pill in the other.  “This is
a sleeping pill.  Open up.”

I clamped my mouth shut, my
jaw screaming at me the entire time. 

“If you don’t take this I’m
going to have to knock you out again.” 

I quickly thought about
another knock to my jaw and decided to take the pill.  I opened my mouth and he
gently placed it on my tongue.  Then he gave me a sip of water and pinched my
nose.  I held the water in my mouth until I ran out of breath.  I swallowed,
then sputtered and coughed.

“I’m going to leave the
bottle here with the cap off,” he said, setting it down next to me.  “Do you
need to use the restroom before I leave?”

I hastily shook my head. 
“Where are you going?”

“To work, of course.” 

He left and slid the lock
into place.

Fifteen minutes.  That’s
about all I had before the pill would hit me.  I scooted my butt backwards
until my back hit the wall next to the door.   

Sharp needles dug into my
hands and feet.  Ignoring the pain, I pressed my back against the wall, and
using my feet, pushed myself to a standing position.  Then I began bending my
legs, shaking my bootie, straightening my bound hands over my head.  Anything
to keep the pill from working.  I did this until my muscles ached.  A thin film
of perspiration covered me, sweat pooling around my bound wrists.  I felt the
drug making me sluggish, sleepy.

I needed to keep my body
moving. 

Out of breath, I slid back
to the floor, sitting in the butterfly position, with my bound feet pulled as
close to my butt as I could manage, my knees slightly spread.  I began trying
to work the knot at my ankles.  Whenever I felt myself drifting off, I hit my
face.  Hard.  The pain helped keep me focused.

I drifted between a groggy
state of exhaustion and a jittery state of panic. The shadows moved over the
floor and I knew it must be afternoon.  I didn’t know how much more time I had
left, but I had to get these damn knots undone before Steve came back.

I needed to break the glass
in the window and use a shard to cut through the cords, but I had nothing to
stand on.  The light bulb, however, wasn’t that far above my head.  If I jumped,
I could reach it.  Maybe bat it with my hands.  Whack hard enough, maybe I
could smash it against the ceiling. 

I shimmied my way up the
wall again and took a second to let my legs and feet get past the pain and
prickling sensations.  Then with all the concentration I could muster—which was
not much, because, dear Lord, I was so tired—I hopped to the middle of the room
and jumped as high as I could, my arms over my head swinging at the light bulb
piñata.

It took four tries, but I
got it swaying back and forth.  Like playing tether ball in grade school, I had
to jump and swat at just the right time.

It was so close to hitting
the ceiling, but missed by just a hair.  I kept at it.  Jump, hit, jump, hit. 
Over and over. 

I didn’t break it against
the ceiling.  It finally broke by banging into the metal hook on the bungee
cord.  Sparks flew, and so did little shards of glass.  Turning my head, I
covered my face with my upraised arms to avoid getting cut.

Yes, I had done it!  Now I
just had to saw the cord off my wrists.  I sank back to the floor and found a
shard that was about an inch and a half long.  Sitting in the butterfly position
again, I wedged the shard in between the coils around my ankles.  I cut my hand
in the process, but didn’t care.

I tried to saw through the
cord at my wrists quickly, but broke the delicate glass.  Muttering a string of
swear words, I picked up another shard, and pulled the bungee cord against it
more slowly this time.  I checked my progress.  The cord was slightly frayed. 
It took patience, but eventually, I made it halfway through the cord.

With every ounce of strength
I possessed, I tried to pull my hands apart.  Still, nothing.  Back to
rubbing. 

I had no concept of time,
but the sunlight faded and shadows lengthened across the room.  I prayed I
would get free.  I made deals with God as I continued to saw through the cord.

Minutes passed, maybe an
hour, and then the small area I had been working on severed.  I was so
relieved, tears stung my eyes. 

I again tried to pull my
wrists apart.  They moved maybe half an inch.  Still, success.

A door slammed in the
distance.  Panic bolted through me.  Steve was home.

My whole body trembled. 
What would he do when he realized I tried to break free?   

I looked around the dim room
for the largest piece of glass I could find.  There was a curved piece about
two inches wide lying close to the door.