Reserved.
Dallin opened the door and propped it against the outside wall, where it clicked against a magnet and remained open. He gestured her inside.
She walked around him and stood at the entrance to the room. It was just large enough to house a sleek conference table in the center of the room with ten black leather chairs placed around it. They were going to decide their future in a fucking boardroom.
Hannah entered and pulled out the chair closest to the door. She sat down but kept her purse in her lap. In the middle of the table, a silver pitcher wept condensation from the ice water within it. Hannah noticed an empty glass at each chair. She didn’t touch hers. The last thing she wanted right now was ice water coursing through her body.
Dallin sat next to her and poured water for both of them, then took a sip of his. Even though the door was open, there was only the faintest murmur of activity from outside the room. Inside, it was quiet as a tomb. She sensed him preparing to talk, so she spoke first. She didn’t want him to control the conversation.
“Yesterday morning you attacked me,” she said. “You slammed me against the wall and put your hand on my throat. Do you have any idea what those seconds did to completely change everything about us?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
“Do you, Dallin? Because I can’t imagine you’re feeling what I am. The confusion. The betrayal.”
He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he remained silent.
“I’m here alone,” she said. “I didn’t have to come. Or I could have come with a lawyer. Or the police. But I didn’t.” Though I wish Justine had showed up, she thought. “This is your chance, Dallin. If you have something to say to me, in private, now’s the time.”
Dallin took a deep breath and studied her. He looked at her the way he used to, a look of wanting. Of hopefulness. The look that said I’m so happy you chose me. But he said nothing. Not a word. He just sat there and stared, and Hannah could do nothing but stare back and fight against a blind, stupid hope that he could explain it all away with the one excuse she hadn’t thought of, the one that somehow made sense and put everything back to normal. The only one she could think of was that everything was a long nightmare. Or perhaps she was dead and in some kind of purgatory. Maybe she had died after they had sex, and this was all part of a slow journey to heaven. Hannah didn’t like the thought of being dead, but somehow it was more a relief than falling helplessly through a bottomless pit.
“Are you going to say anything?”
Dallin reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a business card and a pen. He scribbled on the back of it and showed it to her.
I’m doing this for you.
Then he put both items back in his pocket.
“What does that even mean?” she asked. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
He shook his head and then looked to his left, at the doorway.
Hannah turned around to see what he was looking at.
Peter stood in the doorway, his hulking body seeming to fill it entirely.
“What is he doing here?”
Dallin reached out and put his right hand on top of hers.
“I’m sorry, Hannah.”
She yanked her hand back as she heard the door close. That single click was the sound of something permanent. She looked down at the purse in her lap. The can of mace was still visible.
Stall.
“Who are you, Dallin? Who are you really?”
Dallin just shook his head. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”
She heard his words, and she thought of his note.
I’m doing this for you.
She had to get out of this room. She didn’t know what they planned to do to her, but she was pretty sure Dallin shoving her against the wall would pale in comparison. Peter was there for a reason, and it wasn’t mediation.
Dallin looked up at Peter. “She has mace in her purse,” he said.
“Got it.”
“Everything else secure?” Dallin asked him.
“Cameras won’t be a problem,” Peter said. “We’re good.”
Peter stood behind Hannah, in front of the door, and Dallin sat to her side. She sensed Peter stepping forward so he stood directly behind her chair, so she wouldn’t be able to push backward if she tried.
His massive arm snaked around in front of her. Hannah tensed and pushed back into her chair, steeling herself. Peter plucked the purse out of her lap and dropped it to the floor.
She turned to Dallin. “I’ll scream.”
Peter’s voice in her ear. “Not for very long, you won’t.”
Still looking at Dallin, she said, “I’m leaving now.”
Dallin held her gaze for only a moment. “No, Hannah.”
A spike of electricity shot through her, adrenaline telling her to attack or flee. With the spike came anger, the rage of Billy. Most of her life she learned to curb this impulse, to deny herself the satisfaction of the uncontrolled rage Billy got high from every night. But now, here, trapped in this tiny room, there was no reason for control. There was only rage, and Hannah wanted to kill.
I’m going to rip your fucking eyes out and get the hell out of this room.
Hannah lunged.
Her scream lasted as long as it took for her fingernails to arc toward Dallin’s face. The last thing she saw was the surprise in his eyes, as if he believed she wasn’t really capable of anything so aggressive. Little, pretty Hannah, the wife who had supported her brilliant husband, through good times and bad, through the last two years as he had been distant and cold to her, through all the empty liquor bottles in her wake, she had always been there for him. Even after he shoved her against a wall and had nearly strangled her, she hadn’t fought back. All she asked was why. But now there were no more questions. There was only feral anger.
Before her nails reached his face, Hannah felt herself lift from the chair, a seemingly supernatural force sweeping her up. Then, for a few seconds, she was being smothered, and a deep chemical smell invaded her entire being.
Before there was only blackness, she had a fractured thought that it smelled like nail polish remover.
PART II
BLACK
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DAY 6
Bacon.
The aroma swam in her head, awakening her senses. Then she heard it, the spitting of the grease on the pan, the sizzling as the strips flipped to a raw side. If this was a dream, it was a good one. Or maybe she was dead and this was heaven. Heaven would definitely have bacon.
Hannah opened her eyes. The room was dark, but enough light spilled in through the edges of a door and a window shade that she could make out shapes. Her head throbbed, a small victory. Okay, probably not dead, she thought. Dead people don’t get headaches.
Where am I?
She felt around her. She was in a bed, and a quick check with her hands confirmed she still had clothes on. She did a mental scan of her body and moved her limbs. No physical problems, except a bad headache.
Wait. There was something else. Pain in her left arm. Localized. Hannah looked down and saw what looked like a fading bee sting in the crook of her elbow. She rubbed at it and found it sore, like a day-old bruise.
The last thing she remembered was being lifted from the chair, right before she slashed at Dallin with her nails. Then the smell of nail polish remover and then the darkness. And then…bacon. That was it.
Hannah sat up in the bed looked around. Her eyes had adjusted and she could now see more clearly in the partial darkness. The room was small, maybe ten by fifteen, and sparsely furnished. An armoire. Mirror on the wall. One window, one door.
Hannah swung her legs around and placed her bare feet on the cool hardwood floor. She spotted her shoes placed neatly next to the bed and slipped into them.
The smell of bacon grew and made her intensely hungry.
Where’s my purse?
She looked around, not seeing it.
She had no co
ncept of what time it was. She had met Dallin at three in the afternoon and had been attacked not long after that. Was it even still the same day?
Hannah walked to the window and pulled the shade to the side. Her view from the ground level was of an endless expanse of trees. She wasn’t staring into someone’s backyard. She was somewhere in the woods. The pine trees painted a swath of forest green across the landscape, and the smattering of deciduous trees had shed most of their leaves, the ground beneath them coated in spongy layers of red and yellow.
There was no screen behind the window. She scanned the woods again and saw no sign of anyone. Hannah unlatched the window and lifted. It opened with ease. Cool outdoor air flowed into her lungs.
If she was being held against her will, her captors weren’t very good at it. She could just open the window and run. But where? How far was she from the next house? Or road? Or even city?
Hannah turned and looked at the door. There was no lock on it. Back to the window, she lifted the shade fully. She searched for the sun above the spiny fingers of the pine trees and found it low in the sky off to her right. She had no idea if that was east or west.
The sound of movement outside the bedroom door. The sound of plates rattling against each other. Clanking metal, a skillet scraping against an cast-iron burner.
Hannah lifted the window a few more inches.
“Good morning.”
Hannah spun.
She hadn’t even heard the door opening. A man stood holding two coffee mugs. He offered a nervous smile, the kind used when reaching fingers out to a strange dog.
It’s okay, girl. It’s okay.
Black. The man who had asked her if she felt safe, and she didn’t have an answer.
But she did now. Whatever any of this was, Hannah did not feel safe.
She turned and scrambled out the open window. As soon as her shoes touched the soft dirt, Hannah ran as fast as she could.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Wait!”
She heard the shout and Hannah only chanced a brief glance back as she sprinted. The cabin she escaped was small, old, with a rock-wall foundation and aging wood siding. A simple cabin in the woods, the kind a family visited a few days every summer. Or the kind someone spent their last days in, afraid of society. Or a place to hide from those searching for you. Or maybe a place to hide a body.
She saw Black leaning out the window, his hands perched on the sill. He shouted again for her to wait, but Hannah didn’t obey him. She was done obeying.
Her fists pumped in rhythm with her legs. Just run, Hannah. Run hard and fast, constant speed and one stride at a time. Just like long-distance running back in high school, back in Kansas, when the sun burned on the track and the rhythmic slapping of feet on the spongy surface almost became hypnotic. Back then, you could run forever. Now you have to do it again. Just run and don’t look back.
But she wasn’t in high school anymore, and she certainly wasn’t on a smooth, flat track and wearing running shoes. She was running in pumps over layers of moist leaves and pine needles covering rocks and branches. Twice she slipped and nearly fell but was able to catch herself, but with each falter she lost momentum.
She could hear him. He was coming fast.
“Hannah, stop!”
The woods were dense with trees, but not enough for her to zigzag and lose herself among them. She knew she would not outrun him. She spotted a narrow creek bed up ahead of her, a snake of land that once held water but now only nestled river rocks, smoothed by years of passing currents. She made it to the creek before stopping. Hannah bent and picked up two of the rocks, each about the size of a baseball, before turning to make a stand.
Black slowed.
Hannah sucked in the moist air of the woods, cooling her burning lungs. Her headache was gone, or at least pushed aside by the adrenaline and rage. How dare you, she thought. How dare you bring me here against my will. Hannah held the rock in her right hand up at shoulder height, perched to throw. It was a desperate move, she knew, because she couldn’t throw for shit. But if he came close, maybe she could smash it into his skull.
Black came within twenty feet and stopped. Hannah waved the rock above her head, ready to let it fly. She was panting. He hardly seemed out of breath.
“I was hoping for a thank you,” he said.
“What did you do to me?”
He held his hands up. “I saved you.”
She launched the rock at him. It had the distance but went far right. Black didn’t even move as it sailed past him. Hannah shifted the other rock to her throwing hand.
“Look,” he said. “You can keep running if you want. We’re in the middle of nowhere. You can run and run until you are so lost your only option is to die of exposure. Then you’d give those men exactly what they wanted. Or you can give me two minutes to tell you what happened.”
She threw the other rock. Wide left. Frustration seared her.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You never played softball growing up.”
She bent and snatched two more rocks.
“What did you do to me?”
“I followed you to the hotel,” he said. “Do you remember me? From the coffee shop?”
“Yeah,” she said. Hannah pushed the hair out of her face with her free hand. “Black like Betty. Did you abduct me, you pervert?”
“Look, Hannah. What I do…for a living. It involves being able to read situations with very little information. I could tell you were scared about whatever meeting you were going to.”
“I wasn’t scared.” She heaved another rock and felt good about this one. Perfect aim. Black casually sidestepped to avoid having it hit him in the head.
“Will you stop that?” he said.
“Why did you follow me?”
“I was worried about you.”
“I didn’t need your help.”
This time Black outright laughed at her and her anger—Billy’s anger—crested over her.
“Don’t laugh at me!”
His laughing stopped and his face lost all expression. “You needed all the help in the world,” he said. “I watched you talk with that man in the lobby, and I could tell right away he was bad news. Slick. Confident. Definitely not friendly. Then I watched you cross the lobby with him, and I followed until I saw you disappear in the meeting room. A moment later, another man approached the room, and I knew he was ex-military. It’s in the walk.” Black took a couple of steps forward and Hannah threatened another throw. He backed up, holding up his hands in a take-it-easy gesture. “He had a big steel case with him, the kind roadies use for music equipment. He wheeled it outside the room. It was big enough to hold a body. He left it in the hallway and then I saw him open the door. Now, you can stand there with a rock in your hand and tell me you don’t need help, but you sure as hell did back in that hotel.”
Hannah kept the rock held high and her arm was starting to tire.
“He drugged me,” she said. “Smelled like nail polish.”
“Sounds like ether. I thought I heard a muffled scream but I wasn’t sure. A moment later the door opened and the big guy pulled the case inside the room. When he did that, Slick left the room and walked to the service elevator, then disappeared. I waited. A couple of minutes after that, the big guy came out of the room, wheeling the case behind him.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“They wouldn’t have responded fast enough. You would have been long gone before the cops got to the hotel.”
“So, how did—”
“I checked the room and you weren’t in there. Three people went in, two came out. Easy math. I knew you were in that case. I followed him to the garage. He loaded the case into the back of a van. If I had tried to jump him, he would have torn me to pieces. Fortunately for you, I have a good habit of never leaving the house unarmed.” He patted his waist as if looking for something. “Well, almost never.” Then he took a step forward and a twig snapped beneath his boot. “I forced hi
m out of the van and then took it. Drove straight here.”
“You brought me here instead of taking me to the police?”
“I don’t trust the police.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“I saved you. And that guy, the one who took you? He’s not an amateur. Wherever he was taking you, I’m thinking you weren’t coming back. If I had taken you to the police, it was probably just a matter of time before he tried to take you again. Don’t ever assume the police will be able to help you.”
“But you can, right?”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
Hannah finally lowered the rock. Whether his story was true or not, she was certain a rock wasn’t going to be a game-changer. “The slick one. The one I was talking to in the lobby. He’s my husband.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Your purse. Found your ID. Wasn’t hard for me to find out everything about you.”
“You went through my purse?”
“You’re seriously surprised by this?”
She wasn’t surprised at all. Hannah heard the leaves rustle to her left and she spotted a squirrel foraging. “He…the other guy…Peter. He works for my husband. Risk management. He said something about the cameras being secure.”
Black nodded. “He probably made sure the security cameras in the hotel that would have picked up his exit were non-operational. Like I said, not an amateur.” He took another step forward. “They were kidnapping you.”
“I don’t know what they were doing.”
“People are taken away against their will usually for one of two reasons,” Black said. “One is to hold for hostage or ransom, but that doesn’t make as much sense when it’s the husband kidnapping the wife.”
Hannah guessed the second reason before he said it.
“The second reason is to kill the person at another location. One less traceable. Or to sexually assault them.”
Hannah was suddenly exhausted, the adrenaline spike draining from her, leaving her wobbly legged. She didn’t know if she could trust Black, but she didn’t see much of a choice at the moment. She let the rock fall from her hand, which landed by her side and rolled down into the dry creek bed. Then she sat on a much larger rock, its surface cold and hard. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The contact with her own body made her aware of how cold she was.
The Comfort of Black Page 8
