Andy cried out as the car hit a bump in the road.
Paula slowed for a turn. Andy felt the change in speed, the pull of gravity. The glow of the brake lights filled the darkness. Andy saw the stub of the emergency trunk release that Paula had cut off so that Andy could not escape.
They were in a rental car with Texas plates. Andy had seen as much when she’d been shoved into the trunk. Paula couldn’t fly with the gun. She must have driven from Austin, the same as Andy, but Andy had been checking sporadically for Mike. Which meant that Paula had known exactly where Andy would eventually end up. She had played right into the bitch’s hands.
Andy tasted bile in her throat.
Why hadn’t she listened to her mother?
The car slowed again, but this time came to a full stop.
Paula had stopped once before. Twenty minutes ago? Thirty? Andy wasn’t sure. She had tried to keep count, but her eyes kept closing and she’d end up having to jerk herself awake and start all over again.
Was she dying?
Her brain felt weirdly indifferent to everything that was happening. She was terrified, but her heart was not pounding, her hands were not sweating. She was hurting, but she wasn’t hyperventilating or crying or begging for it to stop.
Was she in shock?
Andy heard the clicking of a turn signal.
The car wheels bumped onto a gravel road.
She tried not to remember all the horror movies that started with a car driving down a gravel road to a deserted campsite or an abandoned shack.
“No.” She said the word aloud into the darkness of the trunk. She would not let her panic ramp up again, because it would only make her blind to any opportunities of escape. Andy was being held hostage. Laura had something that Paula wanted. Paula would not kill Andy until she got that thing.
Right?
The brakes whined as the car stopped again. This time, the engine turned off. The driver side door opened, then closed.
Andy waited for the trunk to open. She had gone through all kinds of scenarios in her head of what she was going to do when she saw Paula again, primary among them to raise her feet and kick the bitch in the face. The problem was, you needed stomach muscles to raise your feet, and Andy could barely breathe without feeling like a blow torch was blazing open her side.
She let her head rest on the floor of the trunk. She listened for sounds. All she could hear was the engine block cooling.
Click-click-click-click.
Like the cylinder spinning in the gun, but slower.
Andy started counting to give herself something to do. Being stuck in the Reliant, then Mike’s truck, for so many hours had made her the type of person who said things out loud just to break the monotony.
“One,” she mumbled. “Two . . . three . . .”
She was at nine hundred and eight-five when the trunk finally opened.
Andy blinked. It was dark outside, no moon in the sky. The only light came from the stairwell across from the open trunk. She had no idea where they were, except for another shitty motel in another shitty town.
“Look at me.” Paula jammed the revolver underneath Andy’s chin. “Don’t fuck with me or I’ll shoot you again. All right?”
Andy nodded.
Paula tucked the gun into the waist of her jeans. She worked the keys into the handcuffs. Andy groaned with relief when her arms and legs were finally released. She clawed at the ball gag. The pink leather straps snapped in the back. It looked like something from a 50 Shades of Grey catalog.
Paula had the revolver out again. She glanced around the parking lot. “Get out and keep your mouth shut.”
Andy tried to move, but the wound and her long confinement made it impossible.
“Christ.” Paula jerked Andy up by her arm.
Andy could only roll, falling against the bumper and stumbling to the ground. There was so much pain in her body that she could not locate one source. Blood dribbled from her mouth. She had bitten her own tongue. Her feet were beset by pins and needles as the circulation returned.
“Stand up.” Paula grabbed Andy’s arm and pulled her to her feet.
Andy howled, bending over at the waist to stop the spasms.
“Stop whining,” Paula said. “Put this on.”
Andy recognized the white polo button-down from the blue Samsonite suitcase. Part of Laura’s go-bag from the Carrollton storage unit.
“Hurry.” Paula looked around the parking lot again as she helped Andy into the shirt. “If you’re thinking about screaming, don’t. I can’t shoot you, but I can shoot anybody who tries to help you.”
Andy started on the buttons. “What did you do to Clara?”
“Your second mommy?” She chuckled at Andy’s expression. “She raised you for almost two years, her and Edwin. Did you know that?”
Andy was desperate not to give her a reaction. She kept her head down, watched her fingers work the buttons.
Had Edwin looked at her like her father because he was her father?
Paula said, “They wanted to keep you, but Jane took you for herself because that’s the kind of selfish bitch she is.” Paula was watching Andy carefully. “Seems like you’re not surprised to hear that your mother’s real name is Jane.”
“Why did you kill Edwin?”
“Jesus, kid.” She grabbed some handcuffs from the trunk. “Did you go through your entire life with a fish hook in your mouth?”
Andy mumbled, “Evidently.”
Paula slammed the trunk shut. She picked up two plastic bags in one hand. The gun went into the waist of her jeans, but she kept her hand on the grip. “Move.”
“Is Edwin—” Andy tried to think of a clever way of tricking her into admitting the truth, but her brain was incapable of any acrobatics. “Is he my father?”
“If he was your father, I would’ve already shot you in the chest and shit in the hole.” She waved for Andy to get moving. “Up the stairs.”
Andy found walking relatively easy, but climbing the stairs almost cut her in two. She kept her hand on her side, but there was no way to stop the feeling of a knife twisting her flesh. Each time she lifted her foot, she wanted to scream. Screaming would probably bring people out of their rooms, then Paula would shoot them, then Andy would have more than Edwin Van Wees and Clara Bellamy’s deaths on her conscience.
“Left,” Paula said.
Andy walked down a long, dark hallway. Shadows danced in front of her eyes. The nausea had returned. The dull pain had become sharp again. She had to put her hand to the wall so she would not trip or fall over. Why was she going along with everything like a lemming? Why didn’t she scream in the parking lot? People didn’t run out to help anymore. They would call the police, and then the police would— “Here.” Paula waved the keycard to open the door.
Andy entered the room ahead of her. The lights were already on. Two queen-sized beds, a television, a desk, small bistro table with two matching chairs. The bathroom was by the door. The curtains were closed on the window that probably looked out onto the parking lot.
Paula dropped the plastic grocery bags onto the table. Bottles of water. Fruit. Potato chips.
Andy sniffed. Blood rolled down her throat. She felt like the entire left side of her face was filled with hot water.
“All right.” Paula’s hand rested on the butt of the gun. “Go ahead and holler if you want. This entire wing is empty, and anyway, this ain’t the kind of hotel where people worry if they hear a gal begging for help.”
Andy stared all of her hate into the woman.
Paula grinned, feeding off the rage. “If you need to piss, do it now. I won’t offer again.”
Andy tried to close the bathroom door, but Paula stopped her. She watched Andy labor to sit on the toilet without using her stomach muscles. A yelp slipped from Andy’s lips as her ass hit the seat. She had to lean over her knees to keep the pain at bay. Normally, Andy’s bladder was shy, but after so long in the car, she had no problem going.