Jade Reynolds prided herself on having a good memory. She could recite lyrics having only heard a song a couple of times, knew the first and last names of every child who attended the nursery, even the ones she didn’t look after, and what she didn’t know about Kim Kardashian West could be written on the back of a stamp.
But right now she couldn’t recall a single thing about the man who’d abducted her.
It must’ve been the stuff he’d injected into her neck that was muddling her mind – ever since she’d regained consciousness she’d had a banging headache and could barely see straight. But she knew she was far from Saros now, because wherever she was there was no noise. All that surrounded her was deathly quiet and she was alone.
She tried to focus on what her abductor looked like and was wearing so she could tell the police, but nothing was coming back to her – not his hair colour, how old he was, whether he was wearing shorts or not . . . it was as though he’d become this featureless, generic non-entity in her mind and it was driving her mad that she couldn’t remember.
She tried to flip herself over in the bed but the binds were making it difficult. Her wrists were tied behind her back with some kind of plastic fastening and the skin beneath them was already raw and bleeding from repeated attempts to pull her hands free. Her feet appeared similarly tied, but she couldn’t see because of the blindfold. She began to cry again, hot, angry rivers of frustration that coursed down her cheeks and over the piece of tape gagging her mouth.
But being tied up wasn’t what had bothered her most when she came round: it was the fact that he’d removed her bikini and dressed her. She could sense she was now wearing a T-shirt and loose leggings and the sensation of them against her skin made it crawl, while the thought of him seeing her naked made her want to throw up.
After a minute or so of crying, Jade forced herself to stop and gave herself a good talking to. Crying wasn’t going to get her out of there: she needed a clear head, and a plan. The man who’d abducted her had taken a massive risk doing it in broad daylight, so she knew she had to be really careful. If he was brazen enough to do that, God knows what else he might do. Her best chance of escaping was to be cleverer than him and she could be pretty smart when she wanted to be.
She had her dad to thank for that. Clive Reynolds had been a bit of a local name when he was younger, known for fencing goods that fell off the backs of lorries and on occasion being the driver of said lorries. It was a sideline to his day job on the bins and it gave the family extras they might otherwise have had to do without, like holidays. Clive liked to describe himself as being on the ‘nice side of shady’ and never knowingly got involved in anything nasty or violent. That said, he knew how to handle himself – and he’d raised Jade to do the same. If anyone tried to bully her at school, she stood up for herself.
She might be trussed up like a Christmas turkey right now, but she wasn’t giving up without a fight—
Suddenly she heard a noise, a door opening and shutting somewhere in the building.
Jade began to tremble as the footsteps neared the room and the door swung open. She braced herself, terrified of what was going to happen to her.
Then he was there, right by the bed.
‘Hey, sweetheart, how are you?’
She could feel him stroking her hair. She tried to move away, pulling herself out of his reach. Her chest heaved because she could barely breathe in the gag.
‘Hey, there’s no need for that.’ He sounded wounded. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. Here, let me take this off or you’ll choke.’
His fingertips were gentle against her cheeks as he pulled off the tape masking her mouth. Jade let out a gasp, then gulped in huge mouthfuls of air.
‘Oh dear, you have got yourself in a state. I was going to suggest that tonight we have our first dinner together but, frankly, you’re a mess. I don’t want to sit opposite you looking like this.’
‘Please let me go,’ Jade begged. ‘I want to go home.’
His answer chilled her to the core.
‘But, darling, you are home.’