| |
Cecily awoke in near darkness, dazed and aching. What had happened? Where was she? A tiny glimmer of light crept in under the door. Not much light. Not much to see. She lay on her side on a mattress against a wall. After a brief attempt to turn over, followed by waves of pain and dizziness, she decided she’d have to wait before exploring the rest of the room.
As her brain kicked into gear, slowly, painfully, the memories returned. A dog. Charlie? No, not Charlie. Some kind of mutt. That was his name. Mutt.
Why was she thinking about a dog?
Not the dog. The woman with the dog. They’d been talking. About the crime ring. Then, out of nowhere, the skateboarder boys had accosted her, taken her purse, and dragged her into an alley where they’d blindfolded her, bound her ankles and wrists with duct tape, and slapped another strip across her mouth.
She had recollections of being bounced around in the trunk of a car, then a huge bald guy had thrown her over his shoulder like a sack of feed, down some stairs and shoved her into this room. Had the decency to take off her blindfold, but not the tape.
Memories—or were they dreams?—of someone knocking on the wall.
Right. Shave and a haircut. Someone had been in another room, trying to communicate. Another captive? She remembered words, so whoever it was hadn’t been gagged. And scratches, so probably not tied up, either. Would whoever’d brought her here release her?
More memories. A bright light in her eyes blinding her, keeping her from recognizing who had come in to give her ‘a taste’ of what happened to people who disobeyed. Two of them, she recalled. Or was it three? One had kicked her, hit her on the back of the head. One slapped her face, but another protested, saying she would be of no use if she was badly injured or disfigured.
Her stomach turned at the thoughts of what those uses for her would be.
They’d hit her again a few times, then left. How long ago? She had no idea.
Was whoever had been in the next room still there? Despite the pain, she kicked out at the wall. Carefully. Not hard enough, she hoped, to alert her captors. For all she knew, one could be in the room behind her, watching her. She had to turn over. Assess her situation.
No simple feat with her hands behind her back and her legs tied together. Only then did she realize they’d removed her boots. Not her most expensive, but damn, she loved that pair. Her anger fed her strength, and she flipped onto her back. Breathing hard, she waited for the pain to pass. Had they broken a rib. Or several?
Once the shooting stars behind her eyes had faded, she gazed at the ceiling. Or where she assumed it would be. The tiny bit of light in the room didn’t illuminate farther than the area immediately around her mattress. She could see two more walls now—the one with the door and the one that had been behind her. And no one in the room with her.
Could she sit up?
Why? She was still dizzy, and if she had broken ribs, moving around wasn’t smart. She could work her mouth and her tongue, try to loosen the tape across her lips.
While she concentrated on that single task, all she could think of was what Bryce would say.
I told you not to be so quick to trust people.
Even he would have approached the dog walker, Cecily thought. Wouldn’t he? Or would he have picked up the vibes that she’d been connected to the skateboarders all along? Chide Cecily for missing the obvious.
Ha! Knowing Bryce, he’d have communicated with the dog, which would have warned him about the nasty things his human did.
Then again, Cecily had set out to find what might have happened to Grady. The homeless man had given her a lead, she’d followed it, and maybe it had panned out.
Of course, her success was meaningless. She had no idea where she was, if she’d stumbled onto the right crime ring, and if Grady had been a part of it. Could he have been like those kids on the skateboards, part of a purse-snatching team? Or more? Had those been the vibes Bryce had sensed from Grady?
She closed her eyes. Did she hear scratching again? If so, it was coming from the far wall, not the one the mattress lay against. Could she work her way to that wall?
Damn straight, she could.