Ignoring his sarcasm and without making eye contact, she quietly answered. "No. There's no one." She then clutched her stomach. "Excuse me," she said as she jumped up and headed for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
An hour later, Anthony glanced in his room and saw Christy resting comfortably in his bed. After bowing to the porcelain god three more times, she brushed her teeth and fell back to sleep. He'd taken the time to rifle through her car and was surprised that it wasn't full of girlie stuff. No lip gloss or cosmetics in the console. No beach towels or sun hats in the trunk. Going through the glove box he saw that the car was registered to Bobbi Bowen's Luxury Autos of the Gulf Coast. Of course, the car wouldn't be in Christy's name. She probably got a brand-new one every month from the dealership. He grabbed the bag she'd been carrying and brought it in the house with him. Dumping its contents on his desk, he sifted through her things. There wasn't much.
He opened a brown envelope that held receipts made out to Van Chapman from an accountant in Miami. Dauber & Nicks charged exorbitant fees, but then again, Chapman would've been able to afford them. He returned the receipts with outrageous purchases to the envelope and laid it down.
He then looked through Christy's wallet. He found a Florida driver’s license. He already knew she had blonde hair and blue eyes and that she stood about five foot one. What he didn't know was that Christine Roberta Chapman was twenty years old, an organ donor and weighed 135 pounds. He thought she felt lighter than that, but what did he know? He never once remembered carrying a woman. She had two hundred dollars in cash and one credit card. He also found two ballpoint pens, a hair clip, a large purple comb, a set of house keys and a small address book. He flipped through the book and didn't recognize any names. Tossing it aside, he reached for the last item. A beeper. He scrolled through the numbers in the pager and noticed that some were odd and didn’t appear to be phone numbers. This must've been the special coded message Lester had sent Christy letting her know there was nobody home at the Chapmans’. There were two phone numbers after that one. They must be new. He dialed the first one. After two rings he heard a woman's sobbing voice: "Christy?" A sniffle. Was this Vivian? he wondered. He then heard what sounded like a baby crying in the background. He instinctively knew this wasn't Christy’s mother. He almost hung up but something stopped him. It seemed rude.
"Sorry. Wrong number," he lied.
"Oh, okay," came her sad reply. She hung up.
He dialed the second number. "It's a great day at Bobbi Bowen's Luxury Autos of the Gulf Coast. You've reached the service department. This is Vicky. How can I assist you today?" the woman asked a little too enthusiastically.
Vicky must really like her job, he thought as he hung up.
He put the items he’d found back into Christy's bag and headed to the kitchen to get something to eat.
The second Christy woke up in her captor's bed it occurred to her that she didn't even know his name. Thankfully, other than his crude attitude he hadn't made any attempt to hurt her. She didn't think the Neanderthal had a kind bone in his body, but based on the way he'd treated her after bringing her to his home she couldn't complain. And what had he said in Vivian's bedroom? You'll be comfortable and safe. You don't seem to like Van anyway so think of it as having a little time away at his expense.
If she hadn't felt like death warmed over she had no doubt she'd be fighting him tooth and nail. But as it was, she was too weak to get herself from the bathroom to the bed without her knees shaking. She was comfortable, she was clean and he'd explained more than once that it wasn't his intention to harm her. Although, she did wonder what he would do if she antagonized him. He couldn't talk to her without a scowl. She couldn't imagine what she'd done to him. Maybe she wronged him in a past life or something. Or, maybe she was just bearing the brunt of his hatred for Van.
She wasn't surprised that he was going after Van. He certainly wouldn't be the first. She was shocked it was over a money issue. That was new. She'd expected more than one angry husband or father would’ve given Van a bullet to the brain by now. It was no secret that Van Chapman slept with as many women as he could behind his wife's back. And unfortunately, he never concerned himself with their age. If they emitted estrogen, they were prey. Christy couldn't imagine who he owned in law enforcement that kept burying his indiscretions before official charges were made. Van had to be paying off every family that accused him of sexual improprieties with their underage daughters so it was likely that police statements were being shredded before they were entered in the system.
She sighed loudly when she thought of how disappointed her kidnapper was going to be when Van wouldn't pay a ransom for her return. If anything, he was doing Van a favor. And Vivian was so out of it, Van could tell her that he'd sent Christy on a year-long sabbatical to Tibet and not only would she believe it, if she didn't, she wouldn't care.
Yes, Christy would use this time to recuperate and get her strength back, but she would still have to figure out a way to escape. How hard could it be? He obviously didn't have a problem leaving her alone. She glanced around the masculine bedroom and didn't see a phone. Surely there was one in the house. And if not, she could probably get to the front door and run to a neighbor's house. After all, there was no telling what her captor would do when Van refused to pay. She started to shiver again, and her last conscious thought before sleep reclaimed her was her trying to discern if the ice that crept through her bones was from her illness or fear of her nameless captor and his bottomless black eyes.
Chapter Seven
Naples, Florida 1978
Lost in deep slumber, Anthony awoke with a start. He'd fallen asleep on the couch in his home office. He jumped up and headed for his bedroom. She was still sleeping. He breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the guest bathroom.
A few minutes later he stood in front of the coffee pot mentally kicking himself for letting his guard down. She could've retrieved a knife from the kitchen and stabbed him in his sleep. She could've found her car keys, which he'd left on his desk, and driven off before he realized it. He'd never been so careless before.
He took his coffee into the office and was about to pick up his phone to call X when it rang. "Yeah?” he answered, then took a sip from his mug.
"It's me," X told him. "I just got a call you need to know about." X's voice got louder with each word as he tried to talk above some background noise.
"What is that sound?" Anthony asked, interrupting him.
"It's your sister. She's in the shower and obviously doesn't know how thin the walls are," X sighed.