The One That Got Away (2 page)

She pulled her legs back up to her chin to hide the mutilation, and parted her knees to give herself easier access to her ankles. Her feet tingled from the movement. She extended the box cutter’s blade and worked it across the thick plastic of the cable tie. The blade was dull and the plastic tough. Progress was slow, but steel was gradually winning. Each fast, efficient stroke ate into her restraints.

An intense shriek from Holli jolted Zoë, and the box cutter sliced deep into her anklebone. The pain was sudden and intense. She bit back the flood of agony to keep in a cry.

She ignored the thick bead of crimson trickling down her ankle and kept sawing away. Finally, the cable tie broke. The rapid flood of blood to her feet was both painful and fantastic. She closed her eyes for a moment to take in the exquisite relief.

Her feet might have been free, but she wasn’t halfway home. Trying to cut the other restraint while it was still around her wrists was a much bigger proposition.

She turned the box cutter on herself and tried to work the blade back and forth with her hands. She managed to get a sawing rhythm going, but her movements were so small that she’d be there forever at the rate she was going. She needed something else.

She ransacked the toolbox for anything that might help. She tried the pair of pliers, but her hands were so confined she couldn’t work them.

She spotted a rusted old saw with a wooden handle, hanging on the wall. The serrated blade was at least eighteen inches long. A real carpenter’s tool. And a real escape tool for her. She grabbed it and dropped to the floor with it. She turned the saw blade-side up, braced the handle against her groin, and clamped the other end between her feet.

Instead of working the blade across the cable tie as she had with the one around her feet, this time she worked her bound wrists along the blade. The large, serrated teeth made cutting through the plastic difficult. The cable tie bounced across the wide gap between the teeth, but each tooth snagged and chewed the restraint. After a few minutes of progress, the bond finally snapped.

She grinned as she massaged her wrists. She was free.

Her smile disappeared. No, not free. She had one more thing to do first.

She picked up the box cutter. The tool was now her weapon.

She pushed open the shed’s door and peered out. Another shed was directly across from her, silent and dark, and a weather-beaten workshop sat off to her right. Beyond that, nothing. Desert stretched into the darkness, and mountains turned the horizon into a jagged tear between the ground and sky. There were no streetlights or houselights to be seen. She was in the middle of nowhere. No wonder the bastard didn’t seem worried about the noise.

Escape was a tough proposition. When she ran, where was she going to go? A dirt road running up to the workshop disappeared into the darkness. It had to be the only way in and out of this nightmare.

At least she wouldn’t have to do it on foot. Her VW Beetle sat off to the left. She didn’t see a second car, so he must have brought them here in hers. If she got away in that, he couldn’t chase after her. For the first time, she felt real hope.

But she was getting ahead of herself. Driving away was the final part of the escape. Rescuing Holli was the first part.

Holli
. Her heart fluttered at the thought of her friend’s name. It took her a moment to recognize the source of her new and sudden fear. The screams had stopped. She strained to hear even a whimper, but she heard nothing. Not even the sound of his movement.

Please don’t be dead
, she thought.

She had to know the truth—know how bad it had gotten.

Light spilled from the workshop’s small-paned, dirt-covered windows. It forced back the night and flickered as someone moved inside.

Holli was in there. So was he. She felt her courage waver.

There was movement but not sound. It had been several minutes since she’d heard Holli scream. Was she dead? There was only one way of knowing.

She slipped outside, with the box cutter in hand. The shed had been a sweatbox. Now, in the dry desert heat, her body dried in an instant, baking the dirt to her skin. If someone caught a glimpse of her now, they’d swear they’d witnessed a creature from the world’s Neolithic past.

Staying low, she darted toward the workshop. A wave of light-headedness overwhelmed her, and she pitched forward onto her knees, dropping her weapon. The drug in her system still had its grip on her.

“Slow and steady,” she told herself.

She retrieved the knife and edged over to the workshop, then dropped down underneath one of the windows. She listened for sounds but heard no voices, just movement. Her hand tightened around the box cutter’s plastic handle.

“Don’t be seen. Don’t be seen,” she said and slid up the side of the building to peer inside.

Her breath caught in her throat at the sight. She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep the scream rising in her chest from escaping.

Holli hung from a hook in the ceiling, like a side of beef. Like Zoë, she was naked, but leather cuffs bound her wrists instead of cable ties. Zoë saw no obvious signs of mutilation, but blood and dirt streaked Holli’s body from head to toe. Her head hung down, her long brown hair obscuring her face. She was so very still. The total absence of movement frightened Zoë more than anything else.

The man who’d inflicted this abomination on her friend, on them both, busied himself with his work. He stood with his back to Zoë as he picked over a workbench. He was blond, tall, and broad shouldered. Beyond that, she couldn’t tell what he looked like. The dirty windows and the drug dulling her system reduced him to a smudge when he moved. He picked up something small from the table and crossed the room to Holli.

He held the object up to Holli’s nose, then snapped it. Holli recoiled from it, causing her to swing back and forth. He held her hips to steady her.

Holli was alive. Fresh tears rolled down Zoë’s face.

“No, no, please, not again.” He backhanded her. The strike was so intense that Zoë flinched from the slap as much as Holli did. The blow had its desired effect on Holli—it silenced her.

“Are you sorry for what you did, Holli?” he asked her.

“Yes.” She spat out the word before he had a chance to finish asking his question.

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m sorry. Please let me go. I won’t tell anyone,” Holli said before she broke into a sob.

Zoë felt her friend’s despair. It was all so hopeless. So unfair. She didn’t deserve this. Neither of them did.

Zoë palmed away a tear. She couldn’t let Holli’s despair infect her. She couldn’t save them if she didn’t believe she could do this.

She watched their abductor. She looked for a vulnerability that she could exploit. He seemed relaxed. No one was about to drop by or overhear, which wasn’t surprising, considering the location. He wasn’t working against a clock. He had the air of someone with all the time in the world. He thought he was invincible. He had left her in an unlocked shed with tools, after all. That made him either dumb or arrogant.
Two sides of the same coin
, she thought.

Her plan was simple—surprise. He wasn’t expecting an attack. She could rush in, stab him, and leave him to bleed out on the floor while she got Holli down.

All her bravado disappeared in a second when he returned to his workbench. A whip sat on the bench. It was the real thing, not a sex toy. It was a tool. A weapon.

What had made her think she could take this guy? He was bigger than her, stronger than her, and not doped into submission. What skills did she possess? None. And this son of a bitch was an unknown quantity. He could be a martial-arts master or military trained for all she knew. He’d captured Holli and her without much effort, hadn’t he?

What was her plan? To charge in there and knife him before he could fight back? That was crazy. She couldn’t run ten feet before falling on her face. Even if she surprised him, he could take her down with the whip. If she went in there, she wouldn’t be saving Holli, she’d be getting both of them killed.

She looked over at her car. That was the better weapon. Jump in the car, find cops, and let them storm the place. Going for help would save them both and would send this bastard to jail. That was the smart plan.

But for whom? For both of them or just for her?

Zoë peered inside again. Holli was in bad shape. Zoë knew leaving her friend was a risk. It might be too late for her already, but she didn’t think so. Holli was bleeding, but none of it looked serious. If Zoë slipped away unnoticed, then she could do something.

Zoë stopped trying to convince herself and sagged, exhausted from the strain of the situation. They were screwed. No decision was the right one. Whatever she chose could turn out bad for them. The only thing she knew for sure was if she went in that room, they’d both die.

Then Holli’s glassy-eyed gaze fell on Zoë. Her eyes widened, and the daze left them. Zoë thought she saw hope in her friend’s face. Holli saw a rescue, while Zoë saw a suicide mission.

Zoë shook her head.

The hope in Holli’s face deserted her as quickly as it had arrived and shock replaced it. Zoë recognized the shock for what it meant: shock that her friend would abandon her to save her own ass. Shock that she would surely die.

Zoë mouthed the word
sorry
and dropped out of sight. As she darted over to her car, she heard Holli scream, “No, no, no. Help me, Zoë!”

Each word cut into Zoë as she ran. Tears poured down her face.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

She tugged on the door handle, and it opened. Thankfully, the keys were inside. She slipped behind the wheel and twisted the key in the ignition. She slammed the car into drive and it leapt forward.

“I’ll come back for you,” she said, knowing full well her escape had condemned her friend to death.

CHAPTER TWO

Fifteen months later

The therapist’s room was cramped and uninviting. Maybe she’d seen too many movies where psychologists conducted their work from something resembling a gentlemen’s lounge, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, knee-deep shag carpeting, and a leather couch. Maybe some of these people had offices like that, but not the ones provided by a charity for victims of violence. David Jarocki worked out of a twelve-by-twelve box with furniture liberated from an Office Depot display. The walls were painted a depressing off-white shade that erred on the side of gray. She sat on a sofa that failed to be comfortable. Jarocki sat across from her in a chair that had been pilfered from the waiting room.

“You’ve cut your hair again,” he said.

She’d been keeping hers short for the past year or so. Not mannish short. She kept it all one length in a feminine bob. Reflexively, she touched the nape of her neck. It felt exposed.

“I thought you were letting it grow out.”

“I wanted to, but long hair is a problem for the job.”

Jarocki nodded, but his expression said he didn’t believe her. It wasn’t surprising. Even she didn’t believe her. To have kept her hair long would have made her vulnerable. She had learned that in her defense classes. She kept it short for one reason and one reason only—so there wasn’t enough of it for someone to grab. She knew it, and so did he.

“Maybe we should do a systems check,” Jarocki said.

A systems check was Jarocki’s little phrase for a self-assessment he had her perform before every session. Zoë hated it when the therapist made her jump through his hoops, but that was his job.

“OK, let’s go.”

“Sleep?”

“Good.”

“Nightmares?”

“Yes. One. Last Sunday.”

“Sobriety?”

“I’ve been a good girl. No benders.”

Jarocki smiled. “Glad to hear it. Impulse control?”

“In check. No spur-of-the moment events.”

“Good. Panic attacks? Anxiety?”

“Just one incident. I got a little freaked out but did your breathing techniques, and it calmed me down.”

“Excellent. How’s your week been?”

As much as Jarocki could irritate her with his tactics, she liked him. He might twist her arm in therapy to get her to open up, but he never judged her. Or at least he never showed it. He had to be evaluating her in some way. He was a psychologist. Assessing people and making judgments about them was in the job description, but he’d never uttered a personal opinion. He didn’t pity, resent, or revile her for what she said, did, or thought. He offered her alternative perspectives, suggestions, and insight—and all with a passive, calm-seas expression. She marveled at his ability to do this. Her emotions were always an inch from the surface. His were always hidden. No,
hidden
was the wrong word.
Off-line
was a better word. It made sense, she supposed. What use would a therapist be if he or she showed shock, disgust, or contempt at the slightest remark made by a patient? Still, his passivity had irritated her at the beginning. She’d wanted his contempt and disgust. Now his disapproval wasn’t something she craved.

In the year or so she’d been his patient, she’d come to trust him. She felt safe with her thoughts in this room, with him as referee. But she didn’t give him carte blanche to all her emotions. As much as he was the expert on all things to do with the mind, he fell down in one aspect—experience. He hadn’t abandoned a friend to her death. He hadn’t fought against cowardice and lost. He wasn’t a worthless piece of crap like her. When he posted
those
qualifications on his wall, then they really could shoot the shit about everything.

“OK.”

“Anything you’d like to discuss today?”

“Nope. Not really.”

“That’s going to make today a little slow.”

“I can’t help that.”

Jarocki squeezed out a humorless smile. She knew her lack of openness was irritating to him. “We seem to be sparring today.”

That was code for “you’re pissing me off.”

She wished Jarocki would let rip at her, take her to task, anything to show he had some fire in his blood. She guessed it was in some therapist rule book that they couldn’t lose their temper with a patient. A flash of emotion might actually do wonders for their relationship. Unflappability got to be annoying.