Love Me to Death

THIRTY-NINE

Far away, water dripped in a slow, steady beat. The cold had seeped through to Lucy’s bones, numbing her. The ground was hard, but not wood or cement. The rotten, graveyard stench of dirt, dank and moldy, filled her nose and her throat. Other than the water, which was closer than she first thought, she heard nothing. No traffic, no voices, nothing.

Lucy didn’t harbor any illusions that she was home or safe.

For a panic-filled moment, she feared she was dead or worse—buried alive. She breathed through her mouth, tasted dirt, and her body involuntarily jerked. But the space felt too airy, too open to be buried; and she was in too much pain to be dead.

She opened her eyes, but saw nothing in the deep blackness that filled the space. She didn’t know how big the area, no idea of the time, whether it was day or night, or how long she’d been unconscious.

As her eyes focused, she realized it wasn’t completely dark. Several feet away, out of her reach, was a small space heater emitting a faint glow. It did little to heat the room, but the glow gave off enough light to see the outlines of her confinement, darker and sharper than the shadows that surrounded her. What she could see, coupled with the damp stench, told her she was in a basement or root cellar.

Lucy had no idea where she was; she only remembered how sick she’d been at the church. April was taking her to the bathroom. She’d wanted to throw up … and she remembered nothing more.

Her head pounded, and her tongue was so parched that the dripping water made her more thirsty. Her body was sore, as if she’d been lying in the same position for hours. She tried to sit up, to at least crawl to the tiny heater, but her left hand was pinched on something. She pulled, heard metal clink against metal.

She felt her wrist with her free hand and realized she was handcuffed. She reached out and touched bars. She tried to shake them, but they were sturdy. Her stomach dry heaved as the truth hit her—she was in a cage.

She focused on what happened at the church, but it was as if her memory had been gutted.

Her head felt like a lead ball and her muscles were heavy. With great effort, she scooted into a sitting position and leaned against the bars, then sat abruptly forward, feeling a sharp sting against her back. She now felt the tenderness and bruising all over her body. Gently, she leaned back again and put her head on her knees, hoping the nausea would pass. The feelings she remembered having were akin to what she knew of the effects of many date-rape drugs: the disconnect, the lack of muscle control, the memory loss, and the headache. She touched her body, relieved when she realized she was still in the same clothes she’d had on when she walked into the church. She had no physical sensation that she’d been sexually assaulted. Though she was still terrified, her racing heart slowed, the pounding between her ears subsiding.

When the nausea passed, she focused on her situation. She’d been kidnapped and put into a cage. Where? By whom?

Panic exploded, flooding her bloodstream with adrenaline, her physical restraint swiftly stealing her breath as memories flooded her mind. All the memories she’d hidden, the memories she’d buried so deep she thought they were gone, returned as if Adam Scott had just kidnapped her, and today was her last day. The day he planned to kill her.

“No,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. She would not be a victim again. She would not allow anyone to hurt her, to abuse her, to take anything from her. She was not a victim, she was Lucy Kincaid, and she would fight back with everything she had or die. “Think, Lucy. Think.” She pulled at the handcuff. It was tight; she couldn’t slip it off. She tried to wiggle the bars. Secure. They didn’t even budge a fraction of an inch.

If her kidnapper wanted her dead, he would have killed her already. That meant he had something else in mind.

Her stomach plunged. She couldn’t go through it again, any of it.

Yes you can. You can and will do anything to survive.

But survival meant life-and-death decisions. It meant mental and physical control. It meant being willing to do anything, focusing only on now, not thinking about tomorrow, not thinking about yesterday, but only this moment in time. Being smart, seizing opportunities, constant planning, and if necessary, killing her kidnapper.

The idea that she might need to kill him to escape didn’t scare her half as much as it should have. Who had she become? She wasn’t the woman she thought she’d be one day.

That’s the past, Luce. Focus on the present. Worry about your mental health tomorrow.

She focused first on her breathing, on beating back the panic attack. She couldn’t make smart choices if she was panicking.

Lucy focused on figuring how to get out. She didn’t know where she was, but she preferred to take her chances on the street than with the man who’d locked her in a cage like an animal.

The panic rose again from the pit of her stomach and spread through her body like a wildfire. She’d just beat it back, but the reprieve was a lie. She was lying to herself. She’d never get out of here! She was trapped, just like she had been on the island. She was at the mercy of a sadistic bastard, and she hadn’t even seen his face.

She could scarcely breathe, and though she willed herself to get a grip, she couldn’t. She wanted to die, right then and there, because some fates were worse than death. Some things should never have to be lived through twice. Some things should never be suffered even once.

A moan escaped her chest, a physical stabbing pain that nearly tore her in two. It was her heart breaking, her strength becoming nothing but hot air. She was nothing, only a hard shell. Her shell was cracked by the man who took her, and she wouldn’t be able to put herself back together again.

She dry heaved, but nothing came out. Why, God? Dammit, why? Why me, again?!?

She would die fighting him if she had to. She would not let herself be a victim, not like that. But her hands were trembling. How could she fight when she had only fear inside?

“You’re the bravest person I know.”

Sean’s voice was so loud he might have been sitting right next to her.

Sean.

She would never be able to find out where this relationship was heading because she was going to die.

Her family might never find her. Dillon, Patrick, and Jack would all be looking for her for years, and she’d be dead and buried in an unmarked grave. She’d seen how Justin’s death had torn apart her family eighteen years ago, and now her death would tear them apart again.

Lucy squeezed back tears.

She saw Sean, searching for her, giving up his life to find out what happened to her. Bitter. Lonely. Violent.

She couldn’t let the people she loved suffer. She had to find a way out.

She focused on breathing evenly. Slowing her racing pulse. One. Two. Three. Even. Clear. She didn’t know how big this cage was, but it was longer than her reach.

Be smart, Lucy. Look for the opportunity.

The dripping water. Soap—abrasive soap. Laundry detergent? An underlying scent of coal. There was no furnace down here, she didn’t hear it, but there had been at one time. She was in the basement of an old house.

Though she couldn’t see more than shades of black and dark gray, she closed her eyes and listened to the sounds above. The hum of a heater as it warmed the house above her, but did nothing for the frigid cold of the basement.

A rooster crowed. She smiled. Dawn. That gave her some perspective. She didn’t feel particularly hungry, just thirsty, so likely only the night had passed. She’d been at the church just after five-thirty, a couple of minutes late …

A flash of a memory returned. She’d been walking into the church when a man opened the door for her. A chunk of snow fell from the building and hit her on the back of the neck.

But thinking about that now, she had already been under the short overhang of the roof. Wasn’t she? She focused on picturing the man who opened the door, but couldn’t—she’d been lost in her grief.

But … he’d seemed familiar. What had she thought? That maybe he was a cop she’d seen once before? She couldn’t remember.

Maybe it hadn’t been snow on her neck. She didn’t have much knowledge about poisons, but she wondered if there was something that could be absorbed through the skin. How long had it taken? About thirty minutes.

What it was didn’t matter now, because other than a drug hangover, she had her thoughts in order.

A sudden sound of rushing water down the walls made her gasp. Footsteps upstairs, slow, methodical steps. A shower. Her captor was taking a damn shower!

Something ran over her foot and she screamed before she could stop herself. Her heart started racing again.

Stop it! It was a mouse. A furry rodent. It can’t hurt you.

It felt more like a rat.

Maybe he planned to let her starve to death down here. She remembered reading a book once, long ago, where someone had been held captive and ate rodents to survive. What was the title? She tried to remember, the focus helping her regain control.

There was movement to her right, in the corner, and she whipped her head around and stared at the blankets.

They moved again.

It wasn’t a rat or any other rodent. It was a much larger animal. And it moved, so it wasn’t dead.

She saw strands of light hair at the bottom of the pile. It was a person.

Heart racing, not knowing who was trapped in here with her, how injured the person was, she said, “Who are you?”

Her dry voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “Hello, who are you?”

The blankets didn’t move. The person didn’t speak.

“Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”

No answer. Dammit, Lucy could barely think about saving herself, let alone someone else!

“Please talk to me. We need to plan. My family will be looking for me. I need to know where we are. Find a way to get them a message.”

She thought she heard a whimper.

“You’re scared. I understand being scared.”

No response.

“My name is Lucy. What’s yours?” Silence. “Do you know who kidnapped us?”

Again, no answer. What had he done to the girl? The sadistic bastard! Anger swelled and balanced her fear. Good. She needed the anger, it would help her plan their escape.

“I guess I’m going to have to plan for both of us.”

Upstairs, the shower turned off with a rusty groan. The girl whimpered again and curled even tighter under the blankets.

Lucy noticed that the quality of light was changing. She looked around the basement. A thin sliver of light crept in from windows high off the ground. She stared, curious about why the windows were so narrow, then realized that snow blocked most of the glass.

Windows meant an escape route. If she could get out of this cage, she could break a window and climb out.

She glanced at the huddled girl in the corner. Lucy might be able to fight or run, but she couldn’t leave the girl behind. That meant being quiet, stealth, finding a way to get out of these cuffs and cage and to the window. Without making noise.

She searched her pockets, hoping for a bobby pin or key or something to pick the lock. They were empty.

The floors above creaked as their captor walked down the stairs from the second to the first floor. He was right above them, moving here and there. A faint scent of bacon frying drifted down through the vents, and Lucy’s stomach growled.

Would he feed them? Unlock the cage? She could fight, but not cuffed to the bars. If she could get them off she could use them as a weapon. She didn’t need much—just something hard and thin enough to wiggle into the lock. It was just a matter of feeling her way around the lock mechanism, a trick her brother Patrick had taught her.

Lucy wanted to see her family. She didn’t want them to lose her like this. She didn’t want to die. She would be twenty-five next month. She had so much to do! So many plans. A future.

But her career plans didn’t seem important right now. What mattered was her family. And Sean. And escaping.

The door at the top of the stairs opened. Light flooded the basement, nearly blinding Lucy. She averted her eyes. The girl in the corner didn’t move.

“W-who are you?” she stuttered, her fear evident in her tone as she demanded to know her kidnapper’s name. She swallowed and cleared her throat. Do not show him fear. She squinted, adjusting to the light, and watched the man descend the stairs. He didn’t look threatening. In fact, he looked rather plain and ordinary. Brown hair, brown eyes, Caucasian—maybe five seven or eight, though it was hard to gauge from her position on the floor.

Plain and ordinary. Except for the fact that he was holding a whip.

“Dammit, tell me who you are!”

The whip came down and hit her on her wrist below the cuff. She screamed, then bit her lip, holding back the cry. She would not give him the satisfaction.

“You will not speak unless I tell you to speak.”

“Fuck you!”

The whip came down a second time, and again she cried out.

You idiot, Lucy, he means what he says.

“Now that you’re awake, it is time for your first lesson. Watch and learn.”

Lucy began to shake.

He placed a bowl of scrambled eggs and bacon between the bars of the cage. Lucy looked over at the girl as she dropped the blankets. She was about Lucy’s age, maybe a year or two younger, blond with large blue eyes. She’d been pretty, and would be again, when the bruises that covered her face healed. He’d beaten her.

She wore a filthy, loose-fitting floral housedress, the old-fashioned kind that Lucy’s mother sometimes wore when she was flitting around the house. Her face was clean, though streaked with tear stains, and there was blood on the dress.

“You may eat,” the man said.

The woman crawled to the bowl without looking at Lucy and ate, her face close to the bowl, her hands slowly but purposefully scooping up the breakfast and eating.

In all her criminal psychology classes, Lucy had never encountered a situation like this. She didn’t know what to make of it. It was like a slave–master relationship. How long had the woman been held captive?

When the woman was done, she went back to her corner and averted her eyes.

The man smiled at Lucy. “See how well she obeys?”

“Is that what we are to you? Animals?”

“No. You’re females.”

The tone told her he believed women were beneath animals. He was some sort of misogynist? How many women had he hurt? What did he do to them?

He said, “You will obey just like that one.”

“My brothers will hunt you down like an animal, you bastard!”

He lashed out again with the whip, his face red, his eyes narrow. She bit back a cry when the tip came down on her upper shoulder.

He leaned over and said through clenched teeth, “They will never find me. They will never find you.

“Woman!” he shouted at the girl in the corner. “Show the bitch what happens when you disobey.”

The girl pulled up the back of her dress. Her buttocks were red and swollen, more than a dozen welts blistering her skin.

He turned to Lucy with a half-smile. “If you speak again to me in that tone, if you swear at me, if you talk without my permission, you will suffer the same fate. And you will learn, girl. You will obey me.”

He walked up the stairs and turned off the light.