She raised her head again and took in the space. To her left she saw her blurred reflection in a full-length wall mirror. The bindings on her wrists and ankles were black plastic zip ties.
There was also a small table to the left, with nothing on it but a key. At the far end of the room, the floor-to-ceiling curtains were closed and she could see light leaking in around the edges but could not tell if it was sunlight, moonlight, or artificial light. She saw her clothes in a pile on the floor near the curtains. It looked like they had been torn or cut from her body.
She knew where she was. The lower room of Thomas Trent’s upside-down house. She was now seeing it from the other side of the glass. The grim realization of that and of the situation she was in punched an awful dread into her chest. She flexed against her bindings but couldn’t move.
She started breathing through her nose. The passage was unobstructed and she took in long, deep pulls of air. She knew that the more oxygen she got into her blood, the sooner the poison—whatever she had been drugged with—would be gone. Her mind raced as she tried to remember what had happened. She brought up images of the surfboard and the garage. She had been grabbed from behind. She remembered being choked and felt a physical revulsion at the memory.
Tutu. Had her grandmother been taken or hurt? How did Trent even know about Ventura?
She remembered talking to Trent about the car while she was driving out. He had called and she had turned down the invitation to the dealership. Was the call a hoax? Had he been following her? How did he find out that she was a cop?
There seemed to be only one answer to these questions and it was like a second punch of dread to the chest.
Beatrice.
Ballard realized she had read the ex-wife wrong. Beatrice had told Trent about her.
But that still didn’t account for Ventura, for the jump from the customer named Stella to Ballard. Ballard had said nothing to Beatrice about going to the dealership and actually speaking to Trent.
She then recalled the call on the PCH and remembered telling Trent that she was out of town. He mentioned the surf truck. Had he tracked her through her van? She flexed against the bindings once more and still couldn’t move.
She then heard his voice, and it chilled her.
“Don’t bother, Renée. You can’t break those.”
Ballard looked into the mirror but could not see him anywhere in the room. Then he stepped out from an alcove and came up alongside her. He walked past and then turned to look down at her. With two hands he roughly pulled the gag down over her chin and left it hanging around her neck.
“Where’s my grandmother?” Ballard asked, her voice tight with fear. “What did you do to her?”
Trent stared at her for a long moment, seemingly savoring her fear.
“I assume she’s still sleeping in her bed at home,” he finally said. “You should be more worried about yourself.”
“What did you give me? You drugged me.”
“Just a little shot of ketamine. I keep it for special occasions. I had to make sure you were manageable during the ride in.”
Ballard immediately computed a piece of positive news. She knew about ketamine. Over the years she had dutifully read and studied all departmental bulletins regarding the spectrum of date-rape drugs that had come into vogue and then turned up in sexual assault cases. Ketamine’s primary and intended use was as an anesthetic. But she also knew that its effects didn’t linger long. She could already feel herself shaking off the trancelike lethargy she had awoken with just minutes ago. She would soon be fully alert. She had to count it as a mistake on Trent’s part, and where there was a mistake, there was hope.
“Fuck you, Trent,” she said. “You think you’re going to get away with this? No chance. There are people who know about you, people I’ve talked to. Reports written. I have a partner. I have a lieutenant. This is over. You are over—no matter what you do to me.”
He frowned and shook his head.
“I don’t think so, Renée,” he said. “They’re going to find your surf truck parked at a beach far up the coast from here, and there will be no sign of you anywhere. They’ll know that you’ve been unhappy, and even your grandmother will have to say you seemed distant and a little depressed.”
Ballard wondered if he had been in her grandmother’s house the whole time she was there. Had he listened to her conversation—what there was of it—with Tutu at dinner?
“Meanwhile, they may come talk to me, but what will they have, Renée? Nothing. They’ll have nothing. And I’ll have witnesses who heard me call you and tell you the car you ordered was in. They’ll say I begged you to come to the dealership but that you said no, you no longer wanted it.”
He paused there for effect.
“You’re the detective,” he finally said. “How does that play? No body, no evidence, no case.”
She didn’t answer and he came forward then and leaned down, putting one hand on the chair post next to her left ear for balance. He then reached down and dragged his other hand across her thighs and then down between them. She went rigid.
“You’re mine now,” he whispered.
She turned her face and tried to pull back in the seat, but there was nowhere to go. He brought his hand up and squeezed the muscle of her right biceps as if to check her strength.
“I like a good fight,” he said. “I knew when I first saw you that you could fight. You’re going to be fun.”
He then caressed her right nipple as he straightened up with a smile.
“Another thing I like?” he said. “No tan lines. I had you down for tan lines when I saw you at the dealership. That smooth brown skin—what are you? Are you Poly? Maybe half white, half Polynesian? Maybe a little Mexican too?”
“Fuck you,” she said. “What I am is the one who will take you down.”
He laughed at that.
“We’ll see, Renée,” he said. “And we can talk about all of that later. But right now, I have an important question for you.”
He then reached over to the table and picked up the key. He held it out in front of her face. Ballard recognized it—the key Beatrice had given her. She’d had it in the pocket of her jeans.
“Where did you get this?” Trent asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ballard said. “It’s not mine.”
“Well, I know it’s not yours, because it’s a key to my house. I tried it on the front door. But it was in your pocket and I want to know how you got it.”
“I told you, it—”
Suddenly Trent’s left arm shot outward and he grabbed Ballard by the throat. He moved in and used his leverage to slam her head against the back of the chair and hold it there. He leaned down and she could feel his hot breath on her face.
“Don’t lie to me.”
She couldn’t respond. His grip was crushing her airway. She could feel darkness closing in again before Trent finally let go.
She tried her voice but her throat felt damaged.
“I’m telling you, it’s not my key.”
“I found it in your clothes! I go through your clothes and find a key to my own—”