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Melissa groaned as she opened her eyes, blinking in the darkness. Her wrists and ankles were tightly bound, and she was curled up in a cramped space. The trunk of a car, she realized as she felt the car she was riding in lurch.
Oh God, they were driving somewhere.
Waves of nausea rolled over her, threatening to make her sick all over the trunk.
Snippets of memory came rushing back.
The man.
The parking lot.
Offering to show him the house.
She’d turned to get her keys from her bag, and he’d grabbed her. The polite-looking middle aged guy, dressed in business clothes, not some scruffy loner. Not a big guy covered in tattoos who stood out anywhere he went.
This guy had looked...harmless. Normal. He’d said he was there to see Mary, another one of the realtors.
And then the second she’d let her guard down, he’d grabbed her.
She wracked her brain trying to think if anyone else had been around. If other cars had been in the lot. If other customers had been in the shops nearby.
Someone had to have seen something, right? And if not, there were surveillance cameras there. Traffic cams. Something, anything, that would show this guy driving into the parking lot.
That would show her SUV arrive and never leave.
But what if he’d taken her car? He could’ve been working with someone. Could’ve thrown her in his own trunk and then moved her vehicle. This man could’ve driven her SUV off to God knows where, and no one would have been the wiser.
What if no one even realized that she was missing?
Tears pooled in her eyes as her muscles cramped. Her wrists hurt from how tightly they’d been bound, but at least they were in front of her. If her arms had been behind her back, she’d really have felt helpless.
Her stomach churned as the car turned a corner, and she squeezed her eyes shut, taking a few deep breaths.
Her sister had probably tried to call her back to give her updates about Brody. She might realize something was wrong. And she’d never returned Tyler’s text last night. Sure he’d been fantasizing about their afternoon together, but he had asked when he could see her again.
And she’d been so confused about the whole situation she hadn’t even responded. Just left that text there on her phone, waiting, while she’d continued her night out with her friends. He’d been with the guys, too, from what Amy had said.
Oh God.
What if she never saw him again either?
What if this man attacked her when they arrived wherever they were going—raped her? Killed her?
She gasped as tears began to roll down her cheeks. Blinking away the dampness, she took a shuddering breath. Willed herself to calm down.
Had they been driving all this time?
Should she scream? Or was it better not to let him know that she was awake?
She listened, trying to hear the sounds of traffic around them. To hear voices. People. Anything.
They could be anywhere by now.
Shoot, maybe she wasn’t even with the man who’d grabbed her. He could’ve been working with anyone.
The car slowed slightly, and she realized she could see the brake lights from inside the trunk if she twisted her head. One little light was all that stood between her and the rest of the world.
Weren’t there emergency releases on the insides of trunks?
If she could twist and turn around, maybe she could move enough to release it. Lift up her arms and grab it or nudge it somehow. Why hadn’t she ever looked in her own trunk before? Sure, it was probably different in an SUV, but wasn’t that something she should pay attention to?
Throwing her body to one side, she smacked her head against the back of the vehicle. With a lot of wiggling and frustration, she finally managed to turn herself so that she was facing the back of the vehicle. She lifted her bound wrists, fumbling in the darkness.
A car honked behind them, and as the car she was in pulled forward again, she realized this was her chance. Someone was around. Someone would see her.
Kicking as hard as she could at the brake lights, she screamed.
She grabbed onto something with numb hands and tried to open the trunk. Tried to free herself.
Kicking harder and harder, she finally kicked out the entire brake light. The car behind them honked again and again. A siren sounded from nearby, and she kept kicking and fumbling in the darkness, sobbing.
The car she was in sped up and swerved, and she screamed as she was thrown around the back of the trunk. They suddenly swerved off the road, and as her head hit the top of the trunk, everything faded to blackness.
