The next day was a bright summer day, and she woke up feeling better. For her, the most important thing now was to protect the child growing inside her. It was a blow that Eliana had reacted in such a way, but she accepted she had been foolish. What she had seen in Dima was now beyond her. Perhaps it had been his good looks or his money, or both. Maybe it had been the loss of her parents that had made her blind to his shortcomings.
As usual, she showered, dressed, and sat down at the small table in the kitchen to eat some toast and jam. Yesterday she had been repulsed by strawberry jam, but today she couldn't stop eating it. She even considered having cheese with it. She'd always loved her morning coffee, but from now on she'd resolved to have tea in the morning. On her way home she decided she would buy some fresh mint from the organic shop downstairs and make mint tea herself. The last thing she always did before leaving home was pick up her cell phone from the table next to the front door. Fifteen missed calls from Dima. Delete his number, she told herself.
Her apartment was in a block of twenty on the Upper East Side. It wasn't a large apartment, but it was expensive. When she was younger, she'd always wanted to live in the Upper East Side because it was so cosmopolitan. Just before she'd left home, she'd looked at rents there and decided she would never be able to afford it. Her mother and father had put money away for this eventuality, though, so Tyra had been able to get her dream location.
She opened the door to leave and almost fell over a bouquet of flowers that had been left on the doorstep. She read the card. So sorry. please forgive me. Dima. She picked them up and took them with her. As usual, she nodded at the man from two floors up. He was on his way to work as well. She didn't know him, but they nodded at each other every morning. Wouldn't it be funny if we nodded at each other for the next forty years until we retired? she thought. So much happening in our respective lives yet never exchanging a single word about any of it. She followed him downstairs and out onto the street. There was the usual hustle and bustle as she walked to the bus stop. She dumped the flowers in the first trash can she came across.
When a man bumped into her, she thought for a split second that she'd been in the wrong. She’d been looking in the florist’s window and not really concentrating on where she was going. But when he grabbed her and bundled her into the gray van, she tried to scream, but his hand was over her mouth. Nobody heard or saw anything. It all happened so fast. He slammed the door shut from the inside and put his weight on top of her while he reached for some tape.
“What the hell are you—” she managed to say before he put his hand back over her mouth.
“Shut up and do as I tell you. If you do, you won't be harmed. If you insist on making a noise, I'll have to hurt you.”
Thinking of her baby, she decided to be quiet and do as he asked. The duct tape he placed over her mouth clung savagely to her delicate skin, and when she tried to speak through it, it stuck to her lips, making it impossible for her to move her mouth. He put her hands behind her back and taped her wrists together. He did the same to her ankles.
When he drove off, Tyra had no way of holding on, and she slid across the floor, bumping into the side wall. When he turned a corner, she slid to the other side. Use your legs as buffers, she thought. Protect your belly at all costs.
She concentrated on the man. Try and remember him, she told herself. He was short and bald, and she noticed a tattoo on his neck. He was wearing a navy T-shirt and a pair of old jeans, and he had a gold chain and a Rolex. She repeated all of that to herself a couple of times.
When they stopped, Tyra let out a sigh of relief. She had been thrown from side to side, and it had been a great effort to stay on her back and keep maneuvering her feet in front of herself all the time. The van door opened, and she blinked against the sunlight. The man cut the tape at her ankles and pulled her out of the van.
She was in a yard behind what appeared to be a mansion. It was, in any case, a large single property, but she was unable to determine whether it was a dwelling or for office use. A tree hung over the yard, and a gray squirrel ran in front of her and darted up it. The man pushed her to a door, and they entered the building. They were on the ground floor at the rear, in the old servants’ quarters. He opened another door and turned on a light. She saw a flight of steps.
“Go down there,” he said. She put her foot on the first step and slowly began to descend, the man following close behind. Her arms were still tied behind her back, making it difficult to balance. She was petrified she would fall and lose her child. Eventually she made it to the bottom. She was in a damp cellar. There was just one solitary wooden chair in the middle of the room, nothing else.