CHAPTER 52
Shelby’s wrists were bound with duct tape behind her back, and her ankles were also secured tightly with tape. She rubbed her wrists against the wood paneling behind her, frantically, like a Boy Scout might rub together two sticks in hopes of making a spark.
The cabin her captor had brought her to was tiny: one room with a built-in twin-sized bed covered by a flimsy mattress that looked as if it had been dragged in from beneath a woodpile. Every once in a while she’d find a bug or a spider crawling up her leg.
Across the room from her there was a sink and a wood counter, but no other appliances.
From far away, when they had trudged up the mountain earlier, the cabin had looked warm and inviting, reminding her of happier times. That was the moment she’d realized they were very close to the place she’d vacationed with Ben and his parents. The moment she recognized the massive rock feature up on the face of the mountain, she knew this was the same exact area. She and Ben had used the rock formation as a landmark to find their way along the trails. They called it Two-Face Rock. If you were west of it, you saw the profile of a rugged man’s face; from the east, it resembled a kid with its mouth open as if laughing.
If she could get free, she would know where to go. If she could free herself, she could get off this mountain. Ben loved to hike. He’d taken her all over this mountain, taught her how to boulder hop. They weren’t too far from Lake Clementine near Auburn.
Excitement and, best of all, hope made her work faster.
Her captor had left hours ago.
The minute he’d walked out the door to drop off the letter, she’d begun the process of rubbing the duct tape against the rough wood. She could feel the tape loosening. If she could free her hands, she could then work on the tape around her ankles and run.
On their way up the hill, she’d seen tinplates on the roof. It was raining now and each droplet made a loud tinny sound that was annoying as hell.
A section of the tape around her wrists came apart. It happened so fast, it startled her. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she pulled her arms free.
She wept tears of joy.
And then the door opened.
She jerked upright and swung her arms back behind her.
He stood there looking at her. His eyes fixated on her face and then her ankles, which were still bound.
Had he seen her move? Did he know?
He shut the door and went to the extra trouble of putting a two-by-four in the slots on in the wall on both sides of the door. He hadn’t done that last time. Was it to keep her from getting out or to keep other people from getting in?
When he went to the sink to sort through his cloth bag, she used her shoulder to wipe the tears from her face. She then eyed the tape around her ankles. There was no way she could untie herself quickly enough to get through that door and away from him before he caught her.
She gathered the courage to talk to him. “Did you mail the letter?”
He grunted. His grunts usually meant the affirmative.
Facing forward and trying not to move, she did her best to work the tape back around her wrists, hoping he wouldn’t figure out what she’d done. She needed to be prepared to run the next time he left on one of his long excursions.
He pulled out the same tin pan he’d been using to heat up soup and began to chop up carrots. When he turned toward her, he was cutting a potato, peel and all.
The dark look in his eyes as he walked her way was freaking her out. “Are you going to peel them first?” she asked.
“What does it look like?”
She could barely swallow. She was shivering again. “Are you making stew?” Her voice sounded all quivery and scared. She needed to get him talking like she’d done before. If she could just stop her voice from squeaking and make it appear as if she were confident, maybe she could get him to relax.
He put the knife up close to her face. “I think you’re far too pretty for your own good. You need a scar right here to give you character.”
The sharp tip of the knife cut into her skin.
She cried out as she grabbed his hand and tried to push him away. It was no use. He was too strong.
“I knew it,” he said. He stormed back to the kitchen and then came back to her side with the duct tape in his hand.
“No, please, don’t.”
“You said I could trust you.” He put down the tape so that he could wrap one of his big hands around her throat. He squeezed until she could hardly breathe. Then he forced her mouth open and inserted the potato, which was worse than being strangled. She tried to cough it up, but she couldn’t. He was wrapping tape around her hands again, so tightly she thought he would cut off her circulation. He shoved her head close to his chest while he worked. He smelled like a wet dog. She gagged.
“Too tight,” she tried to say, but the words came out muffled.
He pushed her head back against the paneling, then leaned down and brushed his jaw against her neck.
She tried to wriggle free.
He did it again.
She tried to scream out and kick her legs, but under the weight of him, she couldn’t move an inch.
His hand slid under her shirt, his callused fingers brushed over her skin. His breathing grew ragged right before he ripped the shirt from her body and simply stared.
She shivered, tried not to cry out again, knowing he would only grow angrier if she did.
She couldn’t breathe.
She closed her eyes tight and pretended she was somewhere else, somewhere safe.