Kidnapped!. Jo Leigh

to be damn careful. He hoped Tate was holding up all right. He also didn’t think Sands Point had a psychiatric hospital.

      TATE WOKE TO DARKNESS. She lay on a mattress, her right handcuffed to something behind and above her head. Every part of her body ached as she shifted her position.

      She tried to think. She’d been in the store with Elizabeth. Karen had been doing a hem. And she’d bought two shirts for her father. It was blank after that.

      This was it, of course. The kidnapping. She could feel the familiar symptoms of a panic attack coming over her like a wave. Her accelerated heartbeat, her constricted throat, the narrowing of her vision as she felt as if she was going to die.

      “Please,” she said, but her voice broke and turned into a sob. “Please, stop this.”

      She wept and struggled for breath as her stomach churned. It felt as if she was on the water, rolling with the waves, but that couldn’t be.

      All she wanted was to go home. She’d been crazy to think this was a good idea. It was her worst nightmare come to life. “Please,” she said again, this time louder, but no one answered.

      He hadn’t covered her eyes though he’d said he was going to use a blindfold. But it didn’t matter because she couldn’t see anything but dark and she couldn’t hear anything but her own silent scream. Her body spasmed and she barely felt the pain in her wrist. Everything was too closed, too tight, and she couldn’t breathe. If she could just get outside, stop this pounding in her chest…. She would die, and then Michael would never know. He would only remember her being so stupid. God, please, make it stop. Please, please. Can’t breathe. She was going to throw up, she knew it. She would die like this, in this small room, and she hadn’t lived at all.

      A light burned her eyes and she struggled more, desperate to get out, get free. Someone was over her, touching her, holding her shoulders.

      “Please stop it. Stop. I don’t want this. I have to get out, please!”

      “Quiet, you damn fool. You’re bleeding.”

      She opened her eyes, adjusted painfully to the light. The man was dark and small and she didn’t know him. She’d never seen him before. It wasn’t Brody. Brody had promised….

      “Stop struggling. You’re tearing open your wrist.”

      But she couldn’t. The more he pressed on her shoulders, the more desperate she became. The smell of liquor made her gag, and he stepped back. She opened her mouth, ready to plead, to beg, but she screamed and screamed.

      He slapped her hard across the face, and it was as if she’d been doused with cold water. She stopped screaming and for a moment, a horribly vivid moment, she was clear, she was there, in this strange room with the awful man.

      “Shut the hell up. You’re gonna piss him off—and you don’t want to do that.”

      “Let me go,” she whispered, barely recognizing her own voice. “Stop this now. I’ll pay you. You won’t lose any money, but please let me go.”

      “You’ll pay, all right, but there’s no way we’re letting you go.”

      “Where’s Brody?”

      “Who the fuck’s Brody? Just shut up. Be still and it’ll be better for you.”

      “What?”

      “If you calm down, I’ll put something on your wrist.”

      “Who are you?”

      He smiled, and his teeth were large and his eyes were small. “Don’t matter who I am. What matters is who you are.”

      “You’re not Brody.”

      He shook his head. “You want to bleed to death, that’s okay with me, only he don’t want his bed all filled with blood, see?”

      “Who is he? Where am I?”

      “Listen to me. Just give me your father’s phone number, okay? That’s all you have to do. Then everything’ll be just fine.”

      “What?”

      “The phone number. There’s nothing else you need to worry about. Just give us the number.”

      “Why?”

      “Look, just give it up. You’re a pretty lady. You don’t want to get hurt now, do ya?”

      “Oh, my God. You’re not Brody. This isn’t the plan. You’ve kidnapped me. You’re going to kill me.”

      “Now who said anything about killing you? We just need the number.”

      She’d awakened from her nightmare straight into hell. This was the real thing. She’d been kidnapped. Every bad dream she’d ever had was true and right now, and there was no bargaining, no going to a safe place. She would die and all she could think as she closed her eyes was that she hoped it wouldn’t hurt too badly.

      She’d never even asked Michael into her home. And now she’d never get the chance.