After what seemed like hours, Zoe’s every muscle ached and the skin on her face and arms stung from constantly rubbing against the rough underside of the rug that held her. She’d already peed herself once and the wetness was uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep from doing it again. More important than the discomfort of wet underpants was her need to know where her captor was taking her and how long it would take them to get there. There was no way she could even begin to plan her escape or any kind of counterattack without having some sense of that. If he removed the handcuffs, maybe that’d give her a chance to gouge his eyes. Or if he removed the tape around her ankles, she could try kneeing him in the balls and running for it. She was fast. She’d run track at Dalton. Sprints and hurdles. She fantasized about grabbing a rock or piece of wood she could use to whack his head. The fucker was so big she wasn’t sure she could even reach his head with anything short of a baseball bat. And she didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to allow her anywhere near a baseball bat. Still, the idea of beating this oversized bastard to a bloody pulp was appealing.
She wondered if they might not be headed for Westport, Connecticut. That’s where they’d found the body of the dancer. But somehow she didn’t think so. That was just off Interstate 95 and there weren’t enough traffic sounds to be on a road like that. No. It was so quiet Zoe felt reasonably sure they were way out in the country somewhere. Wherever it was, she hoped it was somewhere populated enough for someone to hear her when she finally had a chance to scream for help.
She tried to remember what she’d read in the papers about the last victim. Sarah Jacobs. A classically trained ballerina. Member of the New York City Ballet. Daughter of a well-known theatrical producer. Was it more than coincidence that both Zoe and Sarah Jacobs performed for audiences in New York, albeit in far different ways? Maybe. Maybe Tyler Bradshaw had been telling the truth when he said he was an entertainment lawyer. She felt an involuntary shudder. Did letting her know that sort of thing mean there was no way he’d ever let her get out of this alive? And letting her know what he looked like? Yes to both questions. Which meant she had to either escape or die. No other choices.
She wondered how long she had before he would kill her. Would there be weeks of torture and violation before that happened? Or did the bastard get his jollies not from sex and not from sadism but from the simple—or maybe not so simple—act of murder? She wondered how Sarah Jacobs had reacted when he took her. Did she just give in and let herself be murdered? Or had she tried to fight? Or maybe she’d tried to string him along in hopes that he’d let her go? So many questions. And, at the moment, no answers at all.
She felt the car pull over. Slow to a stop. She heard a door open with the engine still running. Then after she counted the seconds—one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, all the way up to twenty-one-one-thousand—she heard Bradshaw climbing back into the car and the door banging shut again. Had they arrived somewhere? Bradshaw started driving again, so maybe not. They were climbing what felt to Zoe like a fairly steep hill on a bumpy roadway. Maybe a dirt road, given the number of bumps and potholes. As they rose, the hill became steep enough for Zoe to feel the tug of gravity pulling the rug toward the rear of the car. Then after a minute or two, the hill leveled out and Zoe heard the quiet crunch of gravel beneath the tires. Then they stopped. Bradshaw turned the engine off. Got out. Slammed the door. Zoe heard the tailgate being lifted.
“Okay, we’re here. Hope you like your new home.”
Zoe could feel hands dragging the rug toward the back and then out through the open tailgate. He picked up the rug and put it down on what she figured had to be the ground.