Escape from Bondage (2 page)

Whatever it was, they mustn’t be
caught. It was a test of her trust, that had to be it…but it was so
unnecessary. They could be quiet…they could do it right here. He
could fuck her silently in the night, right in the convent…she was
so tempted to make some sound and try to get his attention. He
seemed so intent on something.

Heather made a few pitiful noises and
he turned, their eyes met, and she stopped. She had her answer. The
look on his face was so unreadable, yet tension ripped the air, his
own nervousness written all over in his body language.

The fear was the worst she’d ever
known. She raved inwardly. What a fool. A cold hard knot of nausea
gripped her midriff and she fought for breath and control of her
body, now trembling at the extremities.

Water glazed her vision and ran hot
and wet down her face. His disjointed shape was between her and
light over the bureau, the only thing that gave her any hint as to
his activities. She thought about the giveaway light under the
door…

He wasn’t doing sexual things to
her…that much was clear. She hoped she could stay awake for it, and
smiled abruptly. Just as abruptly, she began crying again. She
fought for lucid thought, but it was no good. She lay more calmly
and let the brandy work on her. She breathed deeply, from the
bottom on up. Crying was a good way to choke. She knew
that.

Totally helpless, slowly blinking over
and over again in a determined effort to stay in the room with him,
she watched in dull passivity. There was nothing else to look at,
but his shape moving back and forth. The beating of her heart
almost overwhelmed her with its pure strength, yet it seemed slower
than normal. Its pulse was strong in her inner ears…her eyelids
were so warm and heavy.

The tip of her nose buzzed almost, and
the rims of her ears, and she recognized with a spurt of adrenal
juices that her fingers, her toes, and her lips, even under the
tape, were going numb. A curious, electric tingling sensation, a
sinking feeling washed over her, and as the blackness closed in,
she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake in trusting Mister
Braden Mitchell with her heart, her body and her soul.

#

Heather was right out of it. Braden
picked up the flask and gave it a shake. She’d taken in at least an
ounce and a half of brandy and a good dose of melatonin—he’d put
six or eight tabs in there just to make sure. It had worked
perfectly. He put his tongue over the hole when he pretended to
drink. She really was too trusting.

He put it in the top of bag, along
with the note, and the plastic zip-lock baggie he’d brought to keep
it from getting soaked. He considered the light. He found his cap
and put that on.

Braden squished out the air. He put a
pair of electrical tie-wrap fasteners on the top of the bag, turned
off the lamp and then went to the window. He pulled back the
curtains, as the sky flashed with silent lightning. It must be one
hell of a long ways off, for there was no sound and no actual bolt.
It was the sky and the overcast flickering. He slid his fingers
under the window, feeling cold wet rain on them.

He shivered involuntarily, and pulled
up the window with one smooth motion. To his eternal gratitude,
just then a thin low suggestion of sound came over the dark western
horizon. The grumble built and went on for a while. The house was
quiet as cold winds whipped in. Going back, he picked up the
garbage bag and brought it over. Bracing himself, he carefully
leaned out and chucked it in the general vicinity of a red dumpster
bucket that stood near the kitchen entrance. It landed three feet
to the right of it. It was a two and half story Victorian monster
in warm buff brick, encompassing twenty or thirty rooms. The place
had front, back, side and cellar doors. The lot was well treed and
it was set back from the street. His vehicle couldn’t be more than
fifty metres from this very spot. It all went through his head
again.

He lowered the window after seeing
another bright flash through the low-lying cloud deck.

There was no reaction from the house.
The rumble of thunder seemed to rattle on for a while and he stood
with his heart-rate elevated enough to be uncomfortable. The tough
part was yet to come. Some of them old broads must awake he
reckoned, but what were they going to do about it? They would lie
in bed and think about things.

Heather must weight in at a
hundred-fifteen, maybe a hundred twenty-five pounds or thereabouts.
Now was the time to turn off the flashlight. He stuck it firmly
into his back pocket. After one last visual sweep of the room,
looking for any tell-tale clue, he fiddled with the curtains,
leaving them ten or twelve inches open for a bit of illumination.
He prayed not to trip on anything or run into the end of the
bed.

Braden stood and allowed his eyes to
adjust, waiting and listening to the sounds of the night. He would
have sworn no one was moving about in the place. Whether anyone was
awake and within hearing range was another question.

Braden pulled a thin nylon stocking
out of his shirt pocket and carefully worked it onto his head and
down onto his face. He lined up the eye slots. He had an option for
any contingency.

Going over to the door, he rotated the
knob, trying not to make the door rattle against the
frame.

He pulled it all the way open and
waited to see if the wind took it. The breeze going out was
disconcerting. His heart pounded. The hallway outside was dead
quiet otherwise. Taking a look, the stairs were to the right. There
was a faint green rechargeable nightlight plugged into a wall
outlet right at the top of the stairs, a wise precaution, and a
ruddy glow in the stairwell came from the room down
below.

Picking up Heather, he slugged her
inert form out into the hallway. Setting her down, up against the
wall and out of the way, he carefully pulled her door closed, not
allowing the spring-loaded knob to go on its own but carefully
releasing it into position.

He took a couple of long, silent
breaths. He heard wind up on the roof and small creaking noises
when he moved. The rug was thin and beaten hard.

The longer he stood there the worse it
got.

Bending, he picked the lady up.
Watching for the top of the stairs, he kept going as silently as he
could, his and her breath all too loud in his ears. He thought he
would die halfway down, but they made it. Not a stumble. He didn’t
even brush up against a wall. At the bottom of the stairs, the
hardest part was over as the dimly-lit kitchen and back hall were
empty. A panel of lightness directly ahead revealed the location of
the back door.

Again he set her down, and fiddled
with the lock. With extreme care, he withdrew the deadbolt, and
having thought ahead, he had her keys in his right-hand jacket
pocket. He blocked the door open with a bag of sidewalk salt so the
wind wouldn’t take it.

Braden carried Heather out, face like
an angel in the illumination of the amber security light over the
back door. If he got caught right now, he would be in one hell of a
lot of trouble. He hoped she wouldn’t snore. His adrenalin was
already pumping at a sufficiently high rate, and he thrust the
thought aside. Braden relocked the door. The bag was right there,
lying in the slick paved parking area behind the building. His
vehicle was in an alley on the other side of a screen of brush. A
hundred feet further on, the dim lights on the backs of two and
three story buildings showed where the next street was.

He’d stumbled across it the other day
while scoping the place out. The layout and Heather’s proximity had
inspired the whole idea in the first place. She came first. He
would come back for the garbage bag. God, she was heavy in that
totally relaxed state.

Four minutes later, they were winging
their way across town in his big SUV, her in the back under a
tartan blanket and him in front, laughing obscenely as the adrenal
fits kind of took him, and wondering if he dared risk a late-night
burger joint drive-through.

Braden Mitchell was as hungry as hell
after his amazing feat, and when he got home, he preferred not to
drink on an empty stomach.

Surely this called for a
drink.

#

Heather first became aware of a mild
pain in her head, a soft, fuzzy ache in the region behind her right
ear. The pillow was cold under her lip. The vague thought went
through her that she might have been drooling in her sleep…she’d
been noticing that lately.

A
snork
sound woke her, bringing her
to a higher state, but only for a second. The noise came from her,
and so it wasn’t threatening enough to wake her. She’d noticed that
before too.

The sound of the shower running and
someone cheerfully whistling broke into her semi-conscious state.
She was curled up on her right side. It was Saturday morning and
sooner or later she would have to get up out of her nice warm bed
and have a tinkle. Her eyes popped open to see a blue wall and a
tall, narrow yellow dresser beside a closet door. There was a round
mirror on the wall above it.

The events of the night before flooded
back and there was a sharp intake of breath.

“
Braden.”

Flinging the covers aside, she rolled
over and sat up. This was not her room, and all of her worst fears
came back. That cheerful whistle not far down the hallway was the
only thing that kept her from becoming really angry. There was also
the fact that his duct-tape bonds had been removed and she was
wearing her familiar pajamas. Her own slippers were right beside
the bed waiting for their rightful owner. Beside the closet was a
green garbage bag, much reduced in size. Braden had obviously put
her things away somewhere.

“
Braden. Damn you,
Braden.”

She dropped her feet to the floor. If
the door was locked she was going to smash out the window and
scream bloody murder.

#

The door wasn’t locked, and as she
went down the hall the noise of the shower got louder. She stopped
outside the bathroom door and then went another few feet. The
kitchen light was off but the windows showed the back yard. The
place was bright enough to move around in, and the coffee maker,
full of dark fluid, gurgled and chuckled to itself on a corner of
the countertop between the sink and the fridge.

Going through an alcove and a small
archway, the living room was still dark with heavy curtains closed
and the TV going with the sound turned down low.

The water in the bathroom turned off
and she heard him step out. Retracing her steps she went looking
for a coffee mug, standing for a moment again at the rear window.
Off to her right was a short hallway and the back door. Checking,
she found it latched but not bolted.

Clearly Braden wasn’t expecting her to
make a run for it. She was a little confused, possibly even in a
heap of trouble if someone went looking for her.

Heather sat in the living room,
drinking coffee and thinking about everything.

Braden shaved, flushed the toilet,
brushed his teeth, the noises familiar from her youth and her life
back home as a kid. Her dad had whacked his razor against the side
of the sink just the same way when he shaved. From moment to
moment, she thrilled to the excitement of being here and seeing him
again, and then plummeted to the depths of fear and
resentment.

When he stepped out and went into the
kitchen, he must have seen the level in the coffee maker was down
some and the cream and sugar sitting right there.

He came into the living room with an
inquiring look on his brow.

“
Good morning, Heather.
How are you feeling?”

Something simmered inside of her, and
it wasn’t lust. She was pretty sure it was anger. The trembly
feeling in her arms, her guts, and the shaking of her fingers were
all prime indicators.

She said nothing, just watched TV. She
sipped her coffee, with legs curled up under her and propped up by
a throw-cushion.

Reading something into the atmosphere,
Braden turned back to the kitchen for his own cup of
coffee.

They were in for a long morning. But
he had done what he felt was right. Aspirin might be helpful. They
would get through it. It looked like he had some explaining to
do.

The question was, would she go for
it?

#

Braden got it that Heather was
seething inside and his heart sank.

They sat in silence, with the TV up a
little louder now as the news magazine blathered on and on about
the state of the world and how that all related to the price of tea
in China.

She was angry. Her whole demeanor was
different from the previous times they’d been together, including
last night, when she had clearly been glad to see him.

“
Heather. I’m sorry—” He
didn’t get to finish.

“
What in the hell were you
thinking, Braden?” Her tone cut through him, and her eyes, usually
a warm blue, glinted with unfriendliness, glittering like gemstones
frozen into a glacier.