“Wait.” My throat hurt, my voice raw from screaming like a banshee when I’d come around and found myself trussed up like a wild hog in the trunk of my car. I knew because it still smelled of tuberose and sandalwood, from the perfume I’d spilled a few weeks before.
He’d grabbed me in the parking lot as I was getting into my sky blue convertible—pulled me out and slammed me, facedown, against the hood. I thought he’d take my bag, my wallet, my keys, my car. Maybe it’s a protective instinct; maybe you just focus on what you want to happen next.
Just take it and go.
But that’s not what happened. He didn’t want my bag or my wallet or my keys or my car. He wanted me.
They tell you it’s better to yell ‘Fire’ than ‘Help’, but I couldn’t get either word out because I was choking on the chloroform-soaked rag he had over my nose and mouth. The thing with chloroform is that it doesn’t knock you out right away—not the way you see in movies. I kicked and struggled for what seemed like an eternity before my arms and legs went numb, before darkness overtook me.
I shouldn’t have screamed when I came around. I should have looked for the trunk release, or pushed the brake lights out, or done something that journalists want to interview you about later. But you can’t shut Panic up, you know? She’s a screaming, thrashing bitch, and she wanted out.
It made him mad. I could tell when he pulled over and opened the trunk. I was blinded by the cold, blue glare of the streetlight over his shoulder, but I could tell. And just to be clear, he dragged me out by my hair and stuffed my mouth with the same chloroform-soaked rag he’d used to overwhelm me.
I gagged on it as he forced me out towards the quay, my wrists still tied behind my back. The sweet, pungent smell was not as powerful, but it made me queasy. I almost choked on my vomit before he pulled the rag out of my mouth and slipped a sack over my head. I stopped screaming then. He could have let me choke to death, but he wanted me alive, at least until he was done with whatever it was he’d abducted me for. Rape? Captivity? Ransom? My mind ran wild with a kaleidoscope of gruesome clips from news reports and magazine articles. Sure, I had always felt a pang of compassion, but all I had to do was change the channel or flip the page and I could turn the ugliness off.
But there was no turning this off. I could have convinced myself that it was a vivid nightmare, except the raw tingles on my scalp, where he’d ripped my hair out, stung like hell. But pain was good. Pain told me I was alive. And as long as I was alive, there was still hope.
“Wait,” I said, when he forced me to my knees. “Whatever you want. Please . . . just. Don’t kill me.”
I was wrong. He didn’t want me alive. He wasn’t locking me up or demanding a ransom. He wasn’t ripping my clothes off or taking pleasure in making me suffer. He’d just wanted to bring me here, wherever here was. This is where he was going to kill me, and he wasn’t wasting any time over it.
“Please,” I begged. “Let me look at the sky one last time.”
I needed to buy some time, to see if there was any way out. And if this really was the end, I didn’t want to die in the dark, suffocating on the fumes of fear and desperation. I wanted my last breath to be free, filled with the ocean and surf and sea spray. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend it was Sunday afternoon, and I was a gap-toothed little girl, collecting seashells with MaMaLu.
There was a moment of stillness. I didn’t know my captor’s voice or his face; there was no picture in my head, just a dark presence that loomed like a giant cobra behind me, ready to strike. I held my breath.