Chapter Eleven

Monday, October 16, 1:15 a.m.

Carly woke up when she felt his weight settle at the foot of the bed.

“Jamie, baby,” she murmured sleepily, without opening her eyes. “Where’ve you been?” She sat up, then leaned forward to pull him into her arms. In the dark, her eyes suddenly went wide.

Before she could scream, a stranger’s hand clamped over her mouth. A man’s hand. Wearing a glove. With a twist, he pulled her back against his chest. Carly kept quiet, figuring she was already in so much trouble it wouldn’t do to make him mad. Not right now. Not when the gun in her nightstand drawer was just three feet away.

She felt him lean over to turn on the bedside lamp. That was when she saw that he had his own gun, only this one had something gray screwed onto the barrel.

“If you scream, I’ll kill you right now. Do you understand?” His voice was a harsh whisper against her ear.

Carly nodded and he took his hand away. She scrambled higher on the bed, until her back was against the headboard and her left hand rested on the nightstand, a scant foot from the lamp. It would only take her a second or two to turn off the switch, roll to the left, and come up with the gun in her hand.

She thought about pulling up the sheet to cover herself better than the ivory camisole and matching satin tap pants from Victoria’s Secret, but decided against it. Her breasts, Carly had found, made a useful ally. Maybe they would buy her the second of distraction she would need to shoot him between the eyes. While he looked her over, she did the same for him.

He was a big man, at least six-three. For a rapist, he was dressed unaccountably neatly. Dark dress pants, black shoes with heavy rubber soles, a dove-gray polo shirt pulled taut across his chest and well-muscled arms. His head was shaved as bald as a bullet, and his eyes were so black that Carly couldn’t see the pupils. There was something strange about his face, but she didn’t have time to think about that now.

“Where is Jamie?” No longer a whisper, his voice was quiet, with a flick of menace.

Carly made a rapid recalculation. This wasn’t about her, then. When she had a second, she would think about what this might mean for Jamie, but right now Carly had to worry about Carly.

“I don’t know.” It was an honest answer, and she made sure she delivered it honestly.

“When were you expecting to see him?”

“Yesterday. But he didn’t come.” It was an effort not to keep her gaze focused on the round eye of the gun, but she managed.

“Has he been in contact with you since then? Has he called you, e-mailed you, sent you a postcard?”

She shook her head.

“And do you know what Jamie was doing?”

She couldn’t see any point in lying. “Carrying something.”

“Carrying what?”

Her gaze dropped to her lap. “Money. Or drugs. I think one way it’s drugs and the other way it’s money.”

“And what does he get in exchange for doing that, Carly?” Her name in his mouth was meant to tell her everything - that he knew exactly who she was and that he could find her again if he wanted to. She thought about the gun again and then discarded the idea. This guy didn’t miss a trick. Besides, she didn’t think he wanted to kill her, or even that he wanted to rape her. If she were right - and if she were lucky - all he wanted was information.

“He gets five thousand a trip.”

“And was he ever tempted to keep that money, that money that belonged to someone else?”

Unexpectedly, Carly’s heart foundered at the past tense being applied to Jamie. Even if Jamie wasn’t dead yet, she wouldn’t place any bets on how long he was going to stay alive. “No. I don’t think he even daydreams about it. He thinks it’s too stupid to risk it.” The man with the gun nodded for her to go on, so she did. “He’s just a college kid. But he liked thinking he knew things other people didn’t, that he was part of things other people weren’t. He had one of those cell phones, you know, with a head set, and the part that clipped on his belt buzzed him whenever his stock prices changed. He liked thinking he was a player.”

He heard the way the tone of her voice changed. “And what did you think he was?’

She bit her lip and looked up at him through her lashes. “I think maybe he was just getting played.”

He smiled at her, as if he liked her bravado. His teeth must have set him back some, they were so white and even. Carly knew the look. She had a mouth like that herself.

“Jamie liked his little walks on the wild side, but mostly he just did it to pay for school. Lewis and Clark is expensive. And he was going to go to law school next year.”

“And were you one?”

“One what?”

“Were you a walk on the wild side?”

“Of course.” She shrugged her shoulders. One of her straps slid down. She made no attempt to pull it back up.

“Where would he go if he did decide to take the money and run? Did he ever talk about a particular country? Did he speak any languages, like Spanish?”

Carly thought for a moment, then shrugged. “He never talked about other countries that I can think of. And I know he didn’t speak Spanish, because once he ordered chicken off the menu in a Mexican restaurant and called it polo. Like your shirt.”

He smiled for a second time, but the smile was absent-minded. Carly thought he was making a decision, and despite the appreciative smile he had given her earlier, she was no longer so certain what it would be. She tried again to imagine throwing herself sideways, turning off the light, yanking open the drawer and grabbing the gun. She knew she would be dead before her fingers even touched the light switch.

When he moved, she couldn’t help flinching, but he was only getting a business card from the pocket of his shirt. It was cream-colored, with nothing on it but a number. “Call if he shows up. Leave your number and I’ll get back to you.”

Carly nodded. The man leaned forward, and she froze again, but he was only turning out the light. In the sudden darkness, she heard his sure footsteps walking toward the door. His face had only been a foot from hers before he turned out the light, and now she realized what had struck her as strange. The man’s eyebrows had been tattooed on.