Evelyn had heard the car pull up. That sound, and what it signified, brought the same sweeping, sickening fear that she’d found so debilitating when she first woke up.
Jasper was back. She was out of time—too soon. After all she’d done to escape—after getting that gag out of her mouth and freeing her hands—she was still trying to untie one foot, and she wasn’t having much success. She’d torn up her wrists; they were bleeding all over. Her hands were swollen, too—so swollen she could hardly make her fingers work.
A car door slammed.
Oh God! “Come on, come on,” she murmured, but the panic rising inside her made her feel like she was about to faint. And knowing Jasper would appear within seconds had stolen the hope that’d kept her going despite the difficulty and pain involved.
This is it. It’s got to happen now. Now, now, now! Focusing all her mental power on untying that last knot, she blocked out the sounds she was hearing and everything else. Pull, damn it! Pull if you want to live! Make your fingers work!
It was almost a surprise when the knot gave and she was able to drag her leg free. She could get off the bed—but where would she go? Jasper wasn’t far. She could hear the rocks his feet dislodged rolling down some sort of incline as he drew closer. If she tried to run, he’d see her.
She’d have to incapacitate him instead. Frantically searching for some sort of weapon, she got up—and immediately collapsed. She couldn’t feel her feet, couldn’t walk.
The sounds of his approach grew louder. But there were no weapons, nothing she’d be able to use to fend him off—just the whips, and she had no confidence in her ability to use one of those. He’d only laugh as he took it away. Then he’d turn it on her...
There was nowhere to hide, either—except maybe under the bed, which would be so obvious it wouldn’t be worth her time trying to slide under there.
She was free, and yet she was still trapped. After the valiant effort she’d put into getting away, and all the pain she’d suffered pulling and straining at those ropes, she wasn’t even going to have the chance to escape.
That seemed grossly unfair...
Should she stand behind the door and try to knock him off balance when he came in? Maybe then she’d be able to get around him and run—except that her legs felt like rubber. She wouldn’t make it far, and the chase would only make him angrier, more violent. She knew from past experience how explosively he reacted to any defiance.
Then her gaze landed on the mini-fridge. It was so small, too small for most human beings. But if she could unlatch the door, as if she’d left, and shove whatever he kept in the fridge under the blankets so she could squeeze inside, he might assume she’d already escaped and panic, flee for fear she was getting the cops.
It was her only chance, she decided.
The only problem was...even if he fell for such a trick, she knew she’d be just as likely to suffocate inside that fridge as survive.
***
Jasper’s stomach plummeted the second he saw that the rope he used to tie the door shut was dangling loose. Who’d opened it since he left last night? Had someone stumbled across this place and found Evelyn?
“No!” With his heart beating out a rapid tattoo, he threw the door open and stared at the bed. Sure enough, Evelyn was gone. But it didn’t look like she’d been found; the fresh blood smeared all over the mattress made it look like she’d escaped.
“Son of a bitch!” he cried and upended the bed, threw the chair against the wall and tossed the table to the other side of the room. This was Hillary’s fault, damn it! If she wasn’t such a demanding bitch, always so concerned with her bratty children, he could’ve come earlier—and then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
How long had it been since Evelyn freed herself?
He had no idea. She could’ve woken up as soon as he left.
But it couldn’t have been easy. The fresh blood attested to that. It also attested to how determined she was, that she insisted on fighting him.
Damn her! Where was she?
He ran outside and covered his eyes to block out the glare of the sun as he scanned the area. He didn’t see anything. But even if she was close, she could be hiding in some trees or be snuggled down behind a berm. He called out for her, but it wasn’t as if she’d answer him. Even if he spent all day searching, he might not find her.
And what if she’d made it to the road already? Been picked up?
Surely, if the police weren’t on their way, they’d be coming soon.
“Shit!” In a final, last-ditch effort to see if he could recover her, he checked the ground for drops of blood, hoping that might give him some indication of where she’d gone and how far she’d gotten. But he couldn’t see any blood—or footprints. With all the vegetation, that’d be unlikely, anyway.