by G. K. Parks
“Noah,” I swallowed, “I’m still married. Conrad may be a cheater, but I’m not. Until the divorce is finalized, I can’t.”
He gave me a tight nod. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here. I should never have given you false hope or stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong. If you aren’t ready, you aren’t ready.” He wanted me to argue, to beg, for his help. He thought this was the best way to goad me into transferring the money, but I didn’t budge. “I’ll see myself out.”
“I’m sorry.” I followed him down the hallway and to the lobby. Suddenly, the lights dimmed, and the alarm sounded. I looked up. The two of us were alone in the building. No one had entered. I would have noticed, but I had to make sure. Turning around, I clicked through the security footage. No one else was here.
“What is that?” Noah’s head swiveled back and forth on his neck; his hasty retreat forgotten. He looked like he wanted to bolt upstairs and hide.
“The fire alarm.” According to the computer readout, there was a fire in the main gallery. “It must be another glitch.”
“Shouldn’t you check it out?” He sounded afraid, which set off the warning bell in my head. “You do own the building and those paintings. It wouldn’t look good if something happened on your watch.”
“You’re right.” I moved away from the desk, heading through the glass doors. If there was an actual fire, the fire suppression system would activate. Noah followed a few steps behind. The display panel was on the side wall, and I examined the readout. According to the screen, the entire place was ablaze. “Stupid computer. The system’s acting up today.” I entered the disarm code, but it beeped angrily. I tried again with the same result. “It’s not accepting my commands.”
“Do you have a manual?”
“It’s at my desk.” I tried to move past him, but he put his hand up.
“I’ll grab it.”
“It’s right on top. You can’t miss it.”
A new alarm sounded, and I turned back to the display to see what was wrong now. It didn’t make any sense. I’d been at the gallery several times in the last week, and this was the first day there’d been a problem. It wasn’t a coincidence.
That’s when I heard the gun being cocked. Slowly, I turned. Noah was standing between me and the showroom doors. His hands were raised in surrender. The second warning claxon sounded shrilly in my ear, drowning out their voices.
“Who are you?” Noah asked, the gun aimed at him. He took a step back, away from the attacker. The man was dressed head to toe in black.
I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen me yet. I looked around, searching for a weapon. My gun was at my desk. There was no way to get to it without going past them.
A new sound deafened me. It was a warning that the doors were about to seal. Safeguards were supposed to prevent the fire suppression system from activating, but those measures were connected to the motion sensors. And I had disabled them.
The man aimed the gun at me. “Don’t move,” came the barely coherent growl.
I froze in place and raised my palms. Noah cowered, and the gunman turned the weapon on him, forcing him out of the showroom and into the foyer. I inched forward again. The alert was growing louder, more urgent. The doors would seal at any moment, and I’d be trapped inside. If the gunman didn’t kill me, the fire suppression system would.
I kept moving, determined to get out. Staying was an obvious death sentence. Maybe he was a lousy shot. I’d survived gunshots before. I could do it again. I was almost out of the main gallery when he fired at me. I dove to the side. The bullet tore through the edge of the wall I was hiding behind. Okay, so he wasn’t a lousy shot.
Before I could do anything else, a sudden whooshing filled my ears as the automated system kicked in. The doors swung shut, locking in place. I was sealed inside. I ran at the glass, pounding my fists against it.
“Let me out.” The sound of the fans sent a jolt of adrenaline into my system. Any minute now, the room would become devoid of oxygen. It was the safest way of extinguishing fires without harming priceless art. “I’ll die in here.” Although, that was probably the shooter’s hope all along.
Frantically, I pounded against the emergency button, but it didn’t stop the fans. I searched for something to break the glass. The master switch was behind my desk. Maybe a bullet would work. I screamed at the asshole with the gun, but he didn’t fire again.
Noah was on his knees now, facing me. The man held the gun to the back of his head. I didn’t want to see the con man get executed.
The force of the oxygen being displaced caused a breeze that whipped at my hair. I didn’t have time for this. “What do you want?” I screamed, finally distracting the man. Hopefully, he could hear me. “My husband has money, influence, power. Whatever you want, I can get it for you. But you have to let me out.”
I gasped. My lungs ached in their fight to hold on to what little oxygen was left. This wasn’t working. I dashed back to the panel, entering the unlock codes, the emergency release code, and anything else I could think of. The panel didn’t respond.
“She’s no one. She’s my mark,” Noah said, his voice muffled by the fans and the impenetrable barrier. “She’ll get you what I owe you. Let her go. Let me go.”
The shooter considered his words, and I raced back to the barrier. “The switch. Behind the desk.” I gasped again. “Hurry.”
He edged backward, disappearing from my line of sight. Noah didn’t move, so I assumed the gun was still trained on him. In the meantime, I had to do something. I grabbed the closest thing I could find, a potted plant, and heaved the ceramic pot at the thick glass. It bounced off. Shit, it was shatterproof. My lungs were burning now. No matter how forcefully I inhaled, I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Breathing actually made it worse. I held my breath. My vision blurred. I couldn’t stand. I went down, barely able to see through the encroaching darkness.
Noah pounded against the glass on his side. Bullets flew. I heard the recoil, muted through the cacophony. My body convulsed. I couldn’t hold my breath for another second. My lungs fought to obtain the last few molecules of oxygen but found none.
The tunnel vision got worse as everything turned black. I saw movement behind Noah. A figure. A man, maybe. Noah was on his knees again. Bursts of light fired from beneath my eyelids. I blinked and saw Martin, sheer disappointment on his face. And then there was nothing.
Twenty-two
Nothing existed but the darkness. Were my eyes even open? I tried to blink, unaware if I was doing it. Total blackness surrounded me, pressed against me, suffocated me. I was dead, and there was nothing. Panic took over, and I whimpered. No. This couldn’t be. Pain shot through my chest. Did the dead feel pain? I forced a breath into my lungs. The air scraped against the raw tissue, and the blinding headache set in. No, I wasn’t dead, unless this was hell.
I reached out my left hand. It made contact with something solid. I ran my palm along the flat, scratchy surface. I knew that texture, but I couldn’t place it. It wasn’t as abrasive as sandpaper, but it was coarse and itchy. I followed it as far as I could reach. It was at a ninety degree angle to the surface I was lying on. It had the same texture.
I tried to sit up and instantly hit my head. I put a hand in front of my face, feeling a solid flat surface above me. Unlike the bottom and sides, it was smooth. Oh god, I was in a box. Was I buried alive? I extended my right hand to the side, coming into contact with a new texture. It was softer.
“You’re awake.”
I screamed and yanked my hand away, twisting away from the voice and hitting my face against the side of the box.
“Shh,” Noah said, “it’s me.” His voice sounded weak. “When he threw you in beside me, I thought you were dead. I tried to give you CPR, but I didn’t think it worked.”
“He?”
Noah didn’t answer.
It was hot, and the air felt thin. I was having trouble recalling how I ended up here. “What happened to us? The las
t thing I remember, we were in the studio.” I fought against the blur. “The alarm went off in the gallery.” Martin. “What happened to the other guy?”
“What other guy? The asshole who threw us in here?”
“No, there was another man. Is he okay? Where is he?”
“Alex, it was just us.”
I ran my hand against the rough wall again. The box bounced, and I practically collided with the top. “We’re moving.”
“We’re in a trunk.”
That was the texture. I knew I recognized it. My eyes sought the slightest hint of light against the solid black. “What about emergency releases? Have you seen one? Or felt it? They glow in the dark.”
“There isn’t one.”
“Taillights.” I reached out again, tracing the side. I was on the outside, which meant I should be against the taillights. Why couldn’t I feel or see them? Slowly, I felt along the side, finding a smoother surface against the scratchy carpeting. I ran my fingers along it, but it wasn’t a light. Something was covering where the light should be. I dug my nails into the smooth surface and punched against it, but it didn’t give. “Who did this? Who took us? Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know.”
My instincts were to fight, protest, and point out that he was the con artist, but I kept my mouth shut. For all I knew, this was part of the con. It seemed real. Noah’s fear and reaction seemed real, but he lied for a living. I took another breath, unable to get enough air. “How long have we been locked in here?”
“Hours.” He let out a ragged exhale, shuddering beside me.
“Noah?”
It took almost a minute before he responded. “Yeah, I’m here.”
It was hot, making the air even harder to breathe. No wonder my head hurt. We hit another bump, and I tried to think of an attack plan. I tried to swallow. My throat was dry, and I was becoming increasingly aware of my motion sickness. It was too hot. The air was too thin. The bile rose, and I barely managed to force it back down. I lifted my hips and felt beneath me for a flap, but the trunk didn’t have a hidden compartment. “What about a tire iron or a jack? Something we can use as a weapon.”
“There’s nothing.”
I curled on my side, blindly feeling for a way out of the trunk or a way to get light and air inside. Who took us? Why? “Noah?”
He didn’t answer. I could hear his labored breaths. Fear gripped my insides. I didn’t want to suffocate. Not again. I couldn’t go through that again. Tears welled in my eyes, and in my panicked state brought about by the dark and the circumstances, I didn’t have the energy to keep them from falling.
Calm down, Parker. You’ll figure it out, but you need to stay calm. At least one of the voices in my head was rational. I gasped, sending razors into my lungs. The pain gave my fraying nerves and fractured psyche something else to focus on. I calmed. Rational thinking would get me out of this. At some point, the car would stop. And when that happened, I needed to be ready. I needed a plan.
Without a weapon, I had to rely on the element of surprise. Noah thought I was dead when I was tossed in beside him. Hopefully, whoever took us thought the same thing. As soon as he opened the trunk, I’d attack. I’d only have a few seconds. He would have a weapon, probably the gun. I’d get it away from him and get out of this mess. Simple. The best plans were always the simplest ones.
I felt myself drifting. The heat was unbearable. It had to be over a hundred degrees. We’d been taken hours ago. Someone would realize I was gone. Cross. Jablonsky. Martin.
My eyes closed, or maybe they remained open. It didn’t make a bit of difference. There was nothing to see. Was Martin at the gallery? It made no sense that he would have been there, but I remembered seeing him. Or did I? Things were blurring. Someone came in behind Noah. How did he get inside? Cross had a key. My thoughts scrambled. My head drooped forward, coming into contact with the side of the trunk, and I blinked back to consciousness.
We stopped. Now was my chance. I had to ready myself. The key scraped in the lock. This was it.
The lid lifted, and I was blinded by the sun. Wincing, I hoisted myself up and out, crashing onto gravel. I tried to scramble up, but something knocked me onto my back. A foot pushed down on my chest, keeping me on the ground.
My eyes were still adjusting, but I saw a scuffed black boot before I was roughly flipped over. The gravel scraped against my cheek and elbows. My hands were bound behind me. Then I was lifted into the air and tossed over someone’s shoulder. My stomach couldn’t take it anymore, and I heaved, leaving a trail of vomit behind us. I tried to look up, catching a glimpse of the rear bumper. It was a red car, doused with mud and dust. CE9W. Fuck.
The ground crunched beneath his feet. The gravel turned into dirt, then stone. It was dark. The air got cooler, and we went down some steps. He dropped me onto a paper thin mattress. My head was swimming. I couldn’t focus. Breathe. Just breathe. I inhaled deep breaths, hoping to clear away the black bubbles and confusion. Slowly, I sat up.
I was in a windowless room. The walls were a drab grey. The floor was painted the same color and covered in a layer of grime. I edged off the mattress. It was less than six inches thick, old and worn. The stains on it turned my stomach, but there was nothing left to expel.
I struggled against the restraints. The metal bit into my wrists. This was not good. I searched for a weapon. There were chains and a metal cage in the room. I managed to stand but had to lean against the wall to steady myself. I was woozy. Did I have brain damage? Was I suffering from heat stroke? I couldn’t be sure. But I knew I had to get out of here.
Steps led up to the door, and I moved toward them. I’d get out of here and get help. I took another step, and the door opened. A man dressed entirely in black dragged Noah into the room. He shot a look in my direction and pointed at me with his finger. He didn’t speak, but I understood. He wanted me to sit down and stay put. When I didn’t budge, he removed a gun from behind his back and aimed at me.
“Yeah, okay.” I eased onto my knees.
He kept an eye on me as he dragged Noah into the cage and secured the door. He picked up the chains and came closer. He grabbed my wrists, unhooking the cuffs before encasing my forearms in heavy metal shackles. He bound the two shackles together with a long metal chain and threaded the ends through a metal loop in the floor. He fastened them together with a padlock and gave it a tug to make sure it was secure.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He turned around and went up the steps, returning with two small items. He placed a bottle of water and a meal replacement shake on the floor beside me. I didn’t make a move toward them, even though every cell in my body begged for water. He went to the cage, sliding open a slot and tossing the same items inside with Noah.
Immediately, Noah grabbed the water and chugged it down. The man looked at me. He went to the corner of the room and dragged a portable toilet within range of my chain.
“What? No toilet paper?” I retorted.
He stared daggers at me. The plastic bottle in Noah’s hand popped, and I turned at the noise. The man in black went up the steps and secured the hatch. The lock clicked into place. We were trapped, but at least it wasn’t inside a trunk.
Twenty-three
I lay on the cold, hard floor. Despite being overheated earlier, I was shivering now. The bottle of water and the nutrition shake remained untouched beside the mattress. I stared at the bottles. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to gulp down the water. My headache had gotten increasingly worse, and I could only assume it was from dehydration. But I was more afraid of being drugged and raped than turning into a prune, even though that would kill me first.
“Noah, are you okay?” Since he drank the water, he was my guinea pig. If he was okay, I’d drink. How long had we been here? Without any windows or clocks, there was no way to determine time of day. An
d I wasn’t coherent enough to make a reliable estimate.
He pulled himself off the floor and leaned against the side of the cage, so he could face me. “I don’t know, are you?”
That was good enough for me. I sat up, struggling to twist off the cap. It was difficult with my wrists bound by such thick shackles. Bringing the bottle to my lips, I drank. Nothing in this world had ever tasted better, but I allowed myself only a few small swallows before I put it down.
“I’m not sure. Is the room spinning?” I asked.
“It might be.”
I leaned against the wall. It was just as grimy as the floor. “Where the hell are we?”
“I wish I knew.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know.” Noah rested his forehead against the cage, the tip of his nose poking out through the crisscrossed metal.
I blinked through the fog, taking another small sip of water. “Are you sure about that? You have a nice little abode. No shackles.” I scanned the interior of the cage. It was furnished with a mattress and portable toilet, but he wasn’t chained to the floor. And the cage had been set up before we were even taken. If the man had planned to abduct me, I would be in the cage. The cage was for Noah. My appearance and abduction were just an afterthought. “What makes you so special? Were you a hamster in a previous life?”
“It’s a Faraday cage.”
I stared at him. “Is your name Faraday?”
Noah laughed, probably out of nerves. “It blocks electromagnetic signals. It’ll keep electronics functioning in the event of an EMP or prevent signals from getting in and out.” He surveyed the room. “This is a bomb shelter, isn’t it? Probably built in the 1950s when people were terrified of Communists dropping an A-bomb.”
“How do you know so much about where we are?”
“Look around.”
I finished the water, wishing there was more. Noah was right. This did look like a bomb shelter, but I doubted it was far enough below ground to withstand a nuclear attack. The room was lined with shelves. Unlabeled cans covered one wall. I studied the meal replacement shake. It was starting to make sense.
