Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
She nods her head as best she can and relaxes.
“Good. Where are your car keys?”
She mumbles some words through the gag, but I can’t understand her, so I pull it out. “I think I dropped them near the doorway.”
I look over my shoulder, and spy them under a chair. “Good.” I stuff the gag back into her mouth, get off of her, leave, slamming the door closed as I curse under my breath.
I need to move that car, so I go outside, move the car and trailer around the far side of the barn, and then head back to the house. I’m just coming around the barn, about fifty feet from the back porch, when the door comes crashing open and the woman comes stumbling through it.
She’s still gagged and bound, but the t-shirt blindfold has slipped down her face and is no longer covering her eyes. It’s really not that hard to open doors with hands bound behind your back, so her ambition has kicked in and she fancies herself as one of those save-yourself girls. Because she sees me and starts making a run for it.
It’s about twenty feet to the driveway and from there, another thirty to the highway. But she’s got to navigate those porch steps in five-inch heels and I’m going full speed across flat grass, so I catch up with her just before she gets to the driveway and tackle her, taking her down into a weedy flower bed.
She screams past her gag and I think she hits her head pretty good on the side of the house, because then she starts crying.
I sit on her for a few moments, catching my breath, then spy the boarded-up basement window again. It’s not big enough to fit through—it’s actually rather long and skinny. And the framing around it is out of place with the rest of the house because it looks like a log cabin. Like maybe it was the original structure on this land and they built the mansion around it.
I lean into the crying woman’s neck. “Where’s the basement? How do I get in there?”
She doesn’t answer, just starts cursing me through the gag.
“Lady, I’ve already explained that you’ve got two choices here. Do what I tell you and make things easy, or I kill you. Which do you want it to be? Because I don’t care either way. You’re not gonna fuck up what I’m doing. You’re just not.”
Just like before, she gives in and her body relaxes. So I let out a breath. But it’s not relief. Because she saw my face. Again. That’s twice now.
I stand up, pulling her up with me, and refasten the blindfold. She’s sobbing and on the verge of hyperventilating when I turn her around and shake her by the shoulders. “I’m gonna ask you one more time. Where is the basement and how do I get you in there? And if you don’t tell me, I’m just gonna kill you and stuff your dead body into that trailer you were hauling. Then I’m gonna drive it to the lake out there in the woods and back it into the water. It might take months for people to find your disgusting, bloated body.”
Even from behind the makeshift blindfold I can see her wince. My threats are pretty gruesome, but I’m not sure how tenacious she is and I don’t really have time to figure out how much threatening she needs in order to comply with my demands.
This level seems to work, because she starts mumbling.
I pull the rag out of her mouth and stuff it in my pocket. “What?”
She takes a deep breath, still sobbing. “There’s a trapdoor in the library.”
I grab her wrists and shove her back towards the porch. She lost one of her shoes in the dramatic escape, so she limps her way up the stairs and into the house.
“Which room is the library?”
“Down the first hallway and to the left.”
With a firm grip on her bound hands I push her forward, keeping a good hold on her as she stumbles. A minute later I find the library and sure enough, once I look closely, I can see the outline of a trapdoor in the hardwood floors. I pull it open and stare down into the darkness. “Are there lights?”
“There’s a switch on the side of the wall.”
I position her in front of the trapdoor and give her a nudge. “Get in.”
She huffs. “I can’t go down those stairs blindfolded and with my hands tied behind my back. You’re crazy.”
“Well, give it your best shot because if you don’t, I’ll just push you.”
Her whole body stiffens. “You’re evil.”
“And you’re annoying. Go down. Right now.”
She gets down on her knees, swings her feet out in front of her, kicks off her one remaining shoe, then scoots forward on her butt until her feet are dangling over the side of the opening.