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Grady’s stomach growled, his head throbbed, and his mouth tasted like gym socks. The odor pervading the room grew impossible to ignore. The camping toilet—more like a covered seat with a bag—hadn’t been emptied before he’d been shoved in here, and if there’d ever been any deodorizing chemicals added, they were long depleted.
On the bright side, since they hadn’t fed him or given him anything to drink, he hadn’t needed to use it, although he wasn’t sure he could avoid it much longer. On the down side, the growing stench turned his stomach. He fought the nausea, because the thought of sticking his face over that container—well, it wasn’t happening.
He had no idea what time it was, or how long he’d slept. Slept? Dozed off and on, always listening for the door latch to slide open. Waiting for who might show up, and what would they do to him. He’d alternated between turning the light off and leaving it on, not sure whether he preferred the demons that invaded his thoughts when it was dark, or being able to see the constant reminders he was a captive.
Right now, he was in a lights on phase. Sounds of people moving above suggested it might be morning. Should he pound on the door? Enrique and Xiang wouldn’t have forgotten him, not while they wanted his pictures. Why would Grady assume it was Enrique and Xiang making the noise? They had a big, fancy, comfortable house to live in. If not them, who else was here?
He hadn’t heard the garage door opening or closing, but he didn’t know where he was in relation to the garage. He tried to remember his route from yesterday, but he’d never been good at spatial relationships. Whether the garage was close by or at the far end of the house was beyond his comprehension.
Were there other prison cells in this house? Were there other prisoners? If someone was looking for them, would they discover him, too, and he’d be rescued?
He could spend the entire day—maybe a week, or even a year—coming up with unanswerable questions. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to spend the rest of his life?
Frustrated and furious, he went to the door and slammed his fists against it. “Hey! Anybody here? Let me out!”
Silence.
He paced the perimeter of the room a couple of times, sat on the mattress, paced again, pounded the door again. “I need food! Water!”
More silence.
More pacing, more shouting, more silence, until the latch snicked.
Grady stood in the middle of the room, back straight, head lifted, fists clenched at his sides.
Good thing whoever was going to come in couldn’t see his gut churning or hear his heart pounding.
The door opened.
A stranger stood in the doorway. Grady made a quick assessment. Male. Tall. White. Bald. One diamond stud earring. Soul patch. Tight-fitting Metallica t-shirt. Black denims. Boots that would hurt if they kicked him. A sheathed knife, a la Xiang, at his belt. No visible cell phone.
Grady raised his gaze, met the man’s eyes. Hoped his voice wouldn’t betray his fear. “You bring breakfast?”
The man grunted.
Grady tried to swallow, get enough spit working to talk. “Is that a yes or a no? Because the human body can’t go too long without food. If you don’t have breakfast, water would be okay, because the human body needs that even more than food. I don’t remember how long you can go without water, but I think I might be getting close to the limit.”
Lord, he sounded like Cecily, blathering away. But if it kept this guy’s mind off of why he’d come for Grady—and Grady was pretty darn sure it hadn’t been to take him to breakfast—then every second might be one more second he’d be alive. Or at least not beaten.
Mr. Tall Silent Type grabbed Grady by the back of the neck and marched him out the door. This time, Grady attempted to get his bearings, figure out how the house was laid out. He still had no idea where he was—being delivered via a car’s trunk would do that—but if he could find an exit, he’d worry about the rest later.
The man ushered Grady up a flight of stairs, through a kitchen—plenty of weaponry potential—past what would have been a living room in a normal house, except this one was an open space covered with a ratty-looking beige carpet. No furniture. The windows were all covered by heavy brown drapes like the ones in his cell. There was a fireplace, but Grady didn’t think escaping through the chimney was worth considering. Then up another flight of stairs, down a hall—he counted three doors, all closed—before stopping in front of another one.
Tall and Silent opened the door and shoved Grady inside, following close behind and kicking the door shut behind them.
“Oh, good,” Grady said, squirming against the man’s neck grip. “A real bathroom. I could use a minute or two alone, if you catch my meaning.”
Another grunt. Maybe the guy couldn’t talk. Grady thought about one of the books he’d read where the bad guys cut out the tongues of their victims to keep them quiet. It didn’t seem too far of a stretch to think Xiang might use that technique.
Tall and Silent unsheathed his knife and held Grady still with a meaty hand on his shoulder. As if Grady was going to move. Was the man going to stab him in the back or slit his throat? Why hadn’t he done it downstairs?
Easier to clean blood in a bathroom.
Was Grady going to sit there and take it? He tested the man’s intentions by shifting his weight. The hand pressed harder. Gripped tighter. Grady tensed, but didn’t move.
The man grabbed a hank of Grady’s hair. He heard, rather than felt, the knife slice through it. As locks of hair fell to either side of the toilet, Grady relaxed a little. They wouldn’t cut his hair if they were going to kill him, right? He sensed the knife being put away. A buzzing sound followed, and Grady sat there as the man shaved his head. Great. Matching haircuts.
The buzzing stopped, the man backed away and turned on the water in the shower. “Wash.”
So he could talk.
“Um, I’m kind of shy, you know. You mind waiting outside?”
The man leaned against the closed door, folded his arms across his chest.
“Not much different from the locker room in gym class,” Grady muttered under his breath. At least that’s what he tried to convince himself. He turned his back on the man and stripped, wondering if he could back into the shower. Bad enough this hulk was going to see him naked, but fear had initiated the shrinkage reaction, and—although it should have been the last thing Grady was thinking—he felt even more inadequate.
Head high, he pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the steamy enclosure. Aiming for the drain, first order of business was to relieve himself. In private. Then, he reached for the soap. His cuts stung, but he had to admit it felt good to be clean, and he lingered as long as he dared.
“Enough,” his captor growled.
Grady stepped out of the shower. The man—whose eyes were fixed on Grady’s, and not wandering lower, thank goodness—handed him a towel.
Grady used a corner of the terry cloth to wipe the mirror above the sink and got his first glimpse of his clean-shaven head. His new disguise, he assumed, since he hardly recognized himself, what with the cuts, bruises, and no hair. What were their plans for him?