An hour passed. Then two. Her bag wasn’t in the room. She had to assume her phone had already been ditched. But she still had the watch on her wrist that her parents had given her for Christmas a couple of years before.
She could tell time. A way to stay connected to the outside world.
The headache was mostly gone. She’d explored her space. Had seen the portable toilet behind the small screen. In the bottom of the cupboard, she’d found an apartment-sized refrigerator stocked with milk, juice, and fresh fruits and vegetables. The upper cupboard held crackers, peanut butter, other snacks, and cups and plates. Two of each.
It didn’t take her long to realize plans had been made to keep her, or someone, in that hole for a length of time.
Nine months?
That cradle in the corner upset her most of all.
She avoided looking in that direction.
She had figured out that someone who knew she was pregnant was planning to see that her baby was born healthy.
And the only reason she could come up with for that was that whoever it was would then take the baby from her.
Walking around the room, she looked closely at the walls, searching for any sign that might have been left by a previous occupant. Another pregnant woman?
An older woman, like her, who the kidnapper had decided wasn’t fit to be a mother?
Or another single woman?
Her mind was running away with her, she knew it. But why would someone who wanted revenge, wanted her dead, dump her in a homey looking room?
He knew about the baby. The whole cradle thing...
He wanted her baby!
No. Dropping to the bed, she started to shake again. Clasped her hands together and remembered Cormac reaching for her hand earlier that day. Remembered his strength. He was counting on her to keep his baby safe and she was not going to let him down.
The man had already suffered enough for one lifetime.
If anything happened to her or the baby, he’d blame himself. Just as he had with Willa. She’d looked up the case. The woman’s death had been fully on her. She’d been a consummate actress. Not just with Cormac, but with the high-ranking law enforcement officers with whom she worked, as well as with cartel leaders.
But that hadn’t stopped him from thinking he’d missed something.
Because he was that hard on himself. Expected that much out of himself.
Someone besides Cormac had known about the baby, even before he’d told his siblings that morning.
Maxwell had known.
The cradle. The notes.
He had to have an accomplice...
A noise from above made her jerk. Hard enough to pull something in her neck. She was so stiff with tension she was surprised she didn’t just break. When the sound came again, from the panel in the ceiling, she jumped up from the bed.
If someone thought they were going to...
No. She would not let her emotions get control of her. She was better than that. Fear would put her baby at risk.
It made no sense that anyone would be expecting to share the bed with her, she told herself, an effort to stay calm. If what they were after was a healthy baby, they had to leave her alone.
That’s the card she’d play if they tried to touch her.
And if she had to, she’d find something to murder the guy. The milk and juice cartons were cardboard. Paper plates and cups and plastic silverware, she’d figured for ease of cleaning—just toss them—but maybe so she wouldn’t have a weapon.
The lamp was part of the table. She’d need a saw to get it loose.
But there was the light bulb. She’d have to be sure of her escape route once she unscrewed it. There were no windows. She’d be plunged into complete darkness.
What about a bar from the refrigerator rack? If she could find a way to break it free...
A louder crack sounded, and, heart thudding, Emily moved as far away from the panel as she could. She stood on the other side of the eating table, figuring she could pull it on its side, use it as a shield.
Thinking. She had to keep thinking.
The panel came away, and, worried she might be sick, Emily watched the square hole in the ceiling, trying to be prepared for whatever might come down.
A tray appeared with a rope tied around it, and a voice sounded just to the right of her head. “I made pasta and salad for you,” the male voice said, as though he was her waiter serving her in a restaurant. As though all he wanted to do was please her.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am,” he said.
But she didn’t. She really, really didn’t.
“I’ll be joining you, in time,” the voice continued, and she started searching the cupboard. “It’s underneath,” he said then.
And she stared at the tray he’d lowered to the floor.
“The speaker. That’s what you’re looking for, right?”
She couldn’t see him, and there was no way he could see her through the opening in the ceiling, either.
“You have a camera on me?”
He’d been watching her the entire time she’d been there? She should have figured that one.
“I have to know if you’re in trouble or need something,” he said. “But don’t worry, I have it positioned so that you can use the restroom in private.”
Good to know. For what reason, she wasn’t yet sure, but knew she’d figure it out.
“What do you want from me?”
“It’s okay, Emily, you don’t need to play shy with me. You know what I want. What we both want. You just need a bit to get used to the idea. I understand that. Time locked up alone will give you that. You’ll see. You’ll come around. And when you do, I’ll be here waiting. We’ll be married, and raise our child, and live a good and happy life.”
The guy was deranged.
The notes.
Her stalker.
Maxwell’s accomplice was a nutjob.
But if she played along, would he leave her alone? He’d said she had to be locked alone...so, for the moment, to stay alive, and untouched, she just had to play the game?
Give Cormac time to find her so he didn’t blame himself...
But the baby...
She needed an ultrasound...to know that everything was okay...to know if something else needed to be done...
It wasn’t scheduled for another week. So not the moment’s problem.
The baby. She’d been drugged. She didn’t want to interact with the man. Wasn’t going to give him the pleasure. But she needed to know. “What did you give me?”
She should have made herself throw up the second she’d awoken.
“Just my own concoction, mostly natural. Don’t worry, I just covered your nose and mouth with it long enough to knock you out. I wouldn’t do anything to harm our baby, Emily. You can trust me on that.”
She wanted to. Oh, God, how she wanted to.
“Thank you.”
“See? You’re already starting to come around.”
She wasn’t. Would never. No matter how long he held her captive.
“I’m really sorry about all of this,” the voice came again. “I didn’t want it to happen this way.”
Then why was the room there? It definitely hadn’t come to be overnight. She couldn’t let herself start to believe him. To think she needed him.
Stockholm syndrome could set in. She’d start to sympathize with him and—
No.
“It’s just, when I saw you leave his apartment with him today, I knew I could no longer trust you...”
What had made him think he could trust her in the first place?
Had she seen him, not knowing he was Maxwell’s accomplice? Had he approached Maxwell, offering to help?
Did they know each other in prison?
All questions she wouldn’t ask. But she wouldn’t stop thinking them. She’d keep her mind working. Use her mental assets. Keep herself sharp.
“Now, untie your dinner so I can pull the rope back up. Unless you want me to come down there and do it for you?”
She didn’t want that. With lightning speed she retrieved the tray, got back over by the wall and watched as the rope disappeared into the hole in the ceiling.
“Enjoy the pasta,” the voice said, then the panel slid back in place.
Feeling a small sense of relief—at least the man wasn’t going to be joining her—she promised herself that she wouldn’t become emotionally or mentally dependent upon him.
Physically, she had to eat. She might lose her dinner, but she had to eat. The baby needed nourishment. And so Emily helped herself to a plastic fork and sat down at the table, forcing herself to chew and swallow.
Her job was clear for the moment: keep herself and the baby as healthy as possible.
Keep them alive. Maintain complete control of her mind.
And pray that Cormac found her before more than a tray came down through that hole.
It was a nightmare that didn’t end. He was back to the beginning, only instead of preventing the kidnapping of the ADA he’d gone to visit, he’d been right there with her, supposedly protecting her, when she was snatched.
Right out of his arms...
Police had been in touch with the owner of the car service he’d used to hire the day’s car. Had spoken with the driver, who said that a man had come out of the DA’s office, told him that Cormac was involved in police business and wouldn’t be needing the car anymore that day, and paid him a hundred bucks in cash for his trouble.
The only description he had of the guy was medium height and build, black or brown winter coat, hood and scarf.
Law enforcement was working on securing traffic cam and private surveillance footage around the area, trying to track the car that had driven away with Emily inside.
Who’d have believed it would be so easy to get one over on Cormac Colton?
Shaking with fury, Cormac shut himself up in a room at the precinct and began poring over every piece of evidence pertaining to Emily, from Sean’s printed and digital files.
He laid Emily’s list of anyone she thought might have a beef against her in the center of the table, glancing up at it as he scourged through information.
He wanted the notes that had come with the gifts, the email the perp had sent, all in front of him. Printed them off.
Stared at them for about two minutes before something struck him.
A memory. Niggling.
But nothing to do with the case.
The verbiage, the ownership and the conciliatory tone...
Cold to the core...he knew. Had to get home, to his computer. To reread an email not in the case file. Telling Sean that he’d be in touch, he ran from the building, and, slipping and sliding on the snow-slick sidewalks, he ran until he saw a free cab, too. He was barreling through his apartment door in record time.
Their computers were right where they’d left them.
He swallowed hard, refused to take in the cozy scene and went straight for his computer. Punching the keys with much more force than they deserved.
The email appeared. He read. And saw red.
Six o’clock. She’d had dinner. Had thrown away the packaging and utensil. And panicked when she realized how quickly that little trash bin was going to fill up. Someone would have to come down to take out the trash. She broke down the plastic container that had come down on the tray. Next time she’d empty whatever came down, sending most of the trash back up.
If there was a next time.
But it was a plan. A good plan. She’d collect her trash and send it back up with the dining tray. Yes, that would work.
You’ll see, little one. You and I, we’ll be resourceful. We’ll figure it out one step at a time. That’s how life is. When things seem overwhelming, or you feel like you might be losing a case, you take things one step at a time. And if the loss becomes clear, you look for the deal. The compromise.
Everyone needs something. We just have to figure out what our captor needs. And hope it’s different than what he thinks he wants, because that we will not be giving to him.
She spoke to her baby silently, unwilling to take a chance that her captor was listening to every sound she made.
And to that end, she refused to cry out loud. When tears threatened, she buried her head in the cupboard.
Or stepped behind the screen.
He might have lied about the portable toilet area not being on camera. She didn’t think so. Her captor seemed more deranged than filled with bone-deep evil. Hate.
Or, he could be playing her, stringing her along.
Behind the screen, she wiped away tears. Longing for Cormac. Longing to be trapped in his apartment forever and ever.
He was a strong man. Independent as they came. He wouldn’t let her break his heart.
And when it came to understanding the dregs of humanity, the lows to which people would sink, Cormac already knew it all. Maybe even better than she did. Living with her, listening to her, wasn’t going to make him an ounce more jaded than he already was.
And the age thing...funny how, when one faced the possibility of imminent death, age mattered not at all.
She’d rather grow old sooner than he did, than not grow old at all. Cormac had a lot of doing left in front of him, and damn it, she wanted to be there to know about it. To cheer him on.
Placing her hand to her heart, as though she could squeeze back tears, Emily felt the front-closure clasp of her bra. Remembered how skilled Cormac was at flipping it open with a quick move of his fingers.
And...the bra.
Straps. A metal closure. Bras distracted men.
Within minutes she had the thing off, was working with it, trying different things. She couldn’t stay in there too long. Wouldn’t risk making whomever he was suspicious enough to come down. But she could go out and think a bit. Come back and forth.
Because one way or another, she was going to figure out how to make that piece of lingerie into a noose.
A weapon.
She would not stay in captivity in a dungeon unprotected.