Carli had no idea how he might react if he found her attempting to escape, but she knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. All the more reason why she had to try. Scree…scree…scree, rubbing the cuffs against the wall, wincing in pain after every stroke, as the couple of inches of play in the cuffs was used up and the bracelet pulled tightly against the worsening bone bruise.
Across the basement, the sunlight fighting its way through the dirty glass of a single casement window began to dim. It would be night soon. It was late May, only a month away from the longest day of the year, and Carli figured the time must be a little after eight thirty if darkness was approaching. Martin had left the lights off when he went upstairs and now it was getting dark outside and in.
What would happen when the sun went down? The basement was dank and creepy, undoubtedly filled with spiders and who knew what other insects. The prospect of lying here, chained to this disgusting bed in the pitch-dark basement of this lunatic’s house in the middle of the night frightened Carli almost as much as the idea of being a victim of the I-90 Killer.
Scree…scree…scree.
She pulled her hand through the bars to give her aching wrist a break, and she examined the handcuff closely. Right there! Was that a little more damage to the steel bracelet, or was it just her imagination?
She leaned back against the iron headboard on the thin pillow the man had provided and closed her eyes, willing herself to listen and concentrate. The house was old and the floorboards creaked, and for a long time after they ate, she had heard him walking around on the first floor. It sounded like maybe he had been pacing.
Quite a while ago, though, the noises had stopped, and Carli assumed he had gone away. Maybe he had a job, maybe he was off looking for other girls to kidnap—who knew?—but she was pretty sure he wasn’t up there at the moment.
She yanked her hand in frustration as tears welled up in her eyes and the cuffs rattled against the thick iron bar of the headboard, pulling painfully against Carli’s wrist and further deepening the ugly bruise. Where was Dad? She felt the heavy weight of hopelessness descending upon her, and a gut-wrenching sob escaped her lips. Despite the intense fear and near-constant, jittery adrenaline buzz, Carli began to feel drowsy as her body finally gave in, reacting to the hours of unrelenting stress.
Almost instantly and without realizing it, Carli Ferguson drifted off to sleep, transported to a world of jangling and terrifying dreams; of men with guns, and giant spiders, and horrors yet to be experienced.
CHAPTER 34
A SINGLE BULB MOUNTED on one of the beams crisscrossing the basement’s ceiling flashed on, and Carli jerked awake in the middle of a nightmare. In her dream, she was being devoured by a gigantic scabrous spider and awoke confused, shaking, and afraid. Her bed felt hard and lumpy and her pillow smelled of old drool and the anguish of countless victims. It was the pillow that reminded her where she was and what was happening, that insubstantial but very real sense of terror passed from one unseen victim to the next.
Now she shook her head, trying to loosen the cobwebs, as the creak and crunch of boots on the stairs signaled her captor’s return. He descended slowly, leisurely, as if determined to enjoy every second of the terror he inspired in her.
As the man approached her bed slowly, Carli saw a lustful look on his face, a look of anticipation with maybe just a touch of nervousness mixed in, and she knew. She had intentionally avoided thinking about this scenario but she knew. She was about to be raped.
“It’s time for us to get to know each other a little better, my angel.”
His smile was horrifying, and Carli shuddered.
As he unbuckled his belt, he continued, “It will probably hurt the first time, but if you don’t struggle or fight me, it won’t be so bad. You’ve got a lot to learn in a short time about pleasing men, and I just know I’m going to enjoy instructing you.”
It was inevitable. This was why he had kidnapped her. The romantic fantasy he painted of the two of them together, fate and destiny and all that crap he had spouted while holding her in the car at gunpoint and then cuffing her to the bed, it was all just a smokescreen to keep her calm. Or maybe he really believed his line of crap. He certainly seemed nutty enough to think it was normal for a grown man clearly in his mid-thirties to be paired up with a seventeen-year-old high school girl.
She knew she had to think but she couldn’t think because here he was, approaching the bed like some nervous groom on some sick, twisted wedding night. Panic filled her head, and her heart threatened to explode and oh god here he was and he was loosening his belt, getting ready to slide his jeans down and—
And she smiled at him.
He stopped and stared, thunderstruck, clearly unprepared for this reaction from her.
In a voice shaking with what she prayed he would think was desire rather than barely controlled panic, she said, “Is this how you want our first time to be?”
CHAPTER 35
BILL PACED HIS APARTMENT, frustrated and angry. He should be doing something. He
needed
to be doing something. An irrational and dangerous sociopath had kidnapped his only child, and he was one hundred percent to blame, and he was sick and tired of waiting for someone else to take action.
His heart raced and pounded, and he breathed heavily in and out, like he was running a marathon, and suddenly he understood the meaning of “panic attack.” It was something he had never experienced, but he felt as if he was on the verge of one right now.
Calm down, man. Think!
As he was pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair, he heard a knock on his apartment door.
Who could that be?
Nobody ever visited him here except for Carli.
Could it possibly be her? Get a grip, Bill—that would be too much to hope for.
The knock came again, and Bill turned on his heel and marched toward the entrance to his tiny apartment.
Who could it possibly be? Could it be
…
?
He swung the door open wide and blinked in surprise, his heart pounding as hard as ever. Standing in front of the door, fanning her face to try to generate a little air flow in the sweltering heat of the oven-like apartment building, was FBI Special Agent Angela Canfield. She looked tired and drawn, like she hadn’t been sleeping well, and it occurred to Bill that he wasn’t the only one feeling the weight of responsibility for Carli’s disappearance.
“Oh, God,” he said. He hadn’t thought his fear and panic could get any worse, but he had been wrong. “Is it Carli? Have you—?”
“No,” Canfield said quickly. “We haven’t found her. I’m not here because of Carli.”
Bill shook his head, confused. “If you haven’t heard anything about Carli, then why…?”
“I’ve put in sixteen hours today and needed to get away for a while. I left my partner, Mike Miller, in charge at the home of the murdered bus driver and gave him instructions to call my cell if anything significant turns up. In the meantime, I thought it might be a good idea to see how you were holding up. That was a pretty rough scene between you and your ex this afternoon.”
A trickle of sweat rolled down Bill’s neck. He felt flushed. “It was a bad scene,” he agreed, “and it didn’t feel good to be screamed at in front of all those people, but I can’t really disagree with her. It
was
my fault. Sandra wanted to keep Carli home where she would be safe, and I convinced her to let our baby go to school. I caused this heartache, plain and simple, and I don’t blame Sandra for reminding me of that.”
“There’s plenty of blame to go around,” Canfield reminded him. “Don’t forget, I put my stamp of approval on the whole thing, too. I offered my assurance as a law enforcement professional that Carli would be safe.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Bill answered. “If I had disagreed with you, there is no way Sandra would have given in. None. I’m her father. I’m the one ultimately responsible for protecting her. I’m the one who led that crazy I-90 Killer to her door. I’m the one who failed. It’s just that simple.”
Angela laid a hand on his arm. It felt cool against the heat radiating off his skin. “It doesn’t do any good to blame yourself,” she said quietly. “It won’t get us any closer to bringing Carli home, and that’s the goal—to bring Carli Ferguson home.”
Bill felt dizzy and suddenly tired. Angela left her small, cool hand on his arm and drew closer to him. He looked down into her jarringly bright blue eyes, then he took a half-step toward her, lost in those intense eyes. She matched his advance with a step of her own, and now their bodies were almost touching. This was crazy. Carli was missing and he was going to—what? Get involved with the agent in charge of the investigation? She lifted her hand off his arm and touched his cheek, her eyes never leaving his. She reached up and kissed him, softly at first, then more demanding.
His fear and anger and frustration intersected, exploding into a hunger, a need to leave the despair behind for a few moments with this desirable woman. He returned her kiss with passion, like a drowning man reaching for a lifeline. He drew her slim body into his with an unspoken need that matched his own. Their tongues danced and darted, and her body was warm and sweaty.
Bill pulled his lips from hers reluctantly. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he managed, “for a hundred very good reasons.”
“I know,” Canfield responded, “maybe a thousand.” Then she unbuttoned his shirt. She took firm hold of his shirttail and led him down the short hallway to the bedroom.
CHAPTER 36
“IS THIS HOW YOU want our first time to be?” Carli asked, stopping Martin in his tracks.
He stood at the side of her bed, hands on his jeans where he was preparing to unzip them, and gaped at his angel in astonishment. The words she had just spoken were the last things he expected to come out of her mouth.
Is she messing with my head? Or is it possible she really wants me? Maybe she’s been waiting for an older man. That would be too much to hope for, but still…
He cleared his throat. “Excuse me? What do you mean?” It was imperative he not allow this young girl, destiny or not, to realize how badly she had rattled him just through the force of her personality.
“Well,” she said, squinting up at him, “I’ve been in these clothes all day and they’re dirty and wrinkled, and I’ve been sweating and nervous, and…well…I really have to go to the bathroom. Would it be all right if I washed up first, before we…well…you know?”
Martin smiled. All of his past failures, all the girls who were impure or unworthy, all the times he had been forced to suffer the crushing disappointment of discovering his companions were not as he had imagined them to be, all of that paled before this moment with this little beauty. All of the aggravation, the nearly four years of searching and trying and suffering, had been worth it, because it had all led up to this moment, with his lovely Carli shining her big blue eyes into his, asking to clean up before consummating their love.
“Of course,” he replied. “How thoughtless of me.” He walked forward slowly, fumbling in the right front pocket of his jeans for the handcuff key. He bent down and stroked his angel’s flaxen hair. He felt her stiffen reflexively, and her eyes widened in fear. The ever-present anger began welling up inside him at her response to his touch and he forced himself to maintain control.
She’s not the same as the others,
he told himself, clamping down on the rage before it could begin to consume him.
She’s just nervous. I think she wants this as much as I do, but she’s young and inexperienced, like a virgin bride on her wedding night. Of course she feels a little overwhelmed, it’s to be expected.
He reached forward and inserted the key into the side of the cuff encircling the bed post, opening it and leaving the other bracelet securely fastened to his angel’s wrist. There was no point in taking any chances. He held his arm out and helped her rise to a standing position, steadying her when she wobbled slightly. It had obviously been a long day for her, and she was exhausted.
The strange-looking couple moved slowly to the crumbling basement stairs and began climbing up to the main floor.
CHAPTER 37
BILL ALLOWED HIMSELF TO be pulled down the hallway by Angie—Agent Canfield—all the while thinking,
What is going on here?
It wasn’t that he didn’t find the pretty young agent attractive, sexy, and desirable—he most certainly did.
But he had too much on his plate right now to even consider any kind of romantic entanglement, and the fact that this woman was in charge of the search for his only child’s kidnapper, the man who was suspected to have carried out over a dozen similar kidnappings and presumed murders, made involvement impossible, at least for now.
They turned the corner into Bill’s bedroom. For a moment, he wondered how in the world she had known where it was, then realized the shabby apartment was so tiny his bedroom was located in the only place it
could
be. “Agent Canfield—”
“Angie,” she interrupted, turning into him and reaching up to kiss him again.
Bill pulled away. “Okay, Angie, then. Listen, Angie, this isn’t right.”
She squinted at the words as if not quite understanding them, like maybe Bill had unexpectedly spoken some obscure foreign language. “It isn’t right? What’s not right about it? I know I look young, but trust me, I’m over twenty-one, and I know you haven’t seen your twenties in a while. I know you’re no longer married. Are you seeing someone?”
“Well, no, but still. I’m sure your bosses would consider you sleeping with the father of the latest I-90 Killer victim highly inappropriate. I’d hate to be responsible for you facing some sort of disciplinary action.”
The agent began shaking her head, but before she could say a word, Bill continued. “And here’s the other thing. I find you incredibly attractive, Angie, and it’s not like I wouldn’t be interested under different circumstances. I’m really flattered that someone as beautiful and on-the-ball as you would even give a guy like me a second look, but the only thing on my mind right now is Carli. I’d make lousy company tonight or any other night until my little girl comes home. Find my daughter, bring her home, and if you’re still interested in me, then, maybe, we could do this the right way.”