The Lonely Mile

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.”

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