I backed the car out of Reggie’s driveway, making sure not to hit the silver trashcan that was on the far corner before I turned and swung the car into the road. The streets were well-lit here, the lamps all having haloes around them in the dark of night. Maybe it was a good idea to find a new place to stay, too, in addition to quitting. Kenneth knew where I lived. The asshole had followed me home, so quitting wasn’t going to get me completely away from him. Not unless I did something drastic.
And the change of scenery sounded like a good idea.
I’d been living in that rundown neighborhood for a couple of years now. It wasn’t as bad as some of them, but it was bad enough. Margo could find a new roommate. Or maybe she could move with me. We were both earning enough money to be able to afford it, I knew that. We’d stayed out of habit, not necessity.
It was time to go home. I was tired, and I still had studying to do before I could get into bed. I sighed, feeling like I just wanted a break. But it wouldn’t be long before I could start my life, work on a future that actually went somewhere, and leave all this bullshit behind. I glanced down at the dials, checking for gas, but my tank was full. It usually was.
My phone vibrated, and I picked it up, glancing at the screen. Kenneth again. Dammit. And this late. I kept driving, the phone in my lap. A car was behind me, and I ducked a little so the headlights in the rearview mirror wouldn’t blind me. I expected the phone to ring again, but it didn’t. After a while, I thought maybe it was a good idea to try Saxon one more time. I was probably going to get voicemail, probably going to push the limit and become annoying, but I was starting to get worried.
Maybe it was just general paranoia after the day I had, but it was still there.
I held my phone up on the steering wheel, so I could look at the screen and still keep my eyes on the road. I scrolled down, finding Saxon’s number, and pushed talk. But the damn phone started ringing in the heartbeat before I pressed the screen, and the incoming call was answered. Kenneth’s name was stretched over the screen and the call was connected, time already ticking.
Shit.
I wanted to hang up, but I couldn’t now. I’d answered the damn thing. I took a deep breath and held the phone against my ear.
“Hello?” I asked, pretending as if I didn’t know who was calling.
“You’re a difficult woman to get ahold of,” Kenneth’s voice purred over the line and I shuddered.
“I’ve been busy. You’ve got me in my car… it would probably be best not to talk now.”
“Don’t hang up,” Kenneth said, just as I was about to pull the phone away from my ear. “Come on. At this time, the roads won’t be dangerous. I just want to talk to you. Lately, things are so strained.”
And whose fault is that, I wanted to ask, but I didn’t.
“Is this about my shift?” I asked. There was no other good reason for him to phone at this time of night. In fact, there was no good reason at all. There had never been before, not until this whole nightmare had started.
“Not your shift, no,” Kenneth drawled, “but it is about work. I’ve been getting the idea that you’re not happy where you are,” he said.
Again I wanted to know who he thought was to blame for that, but he was giving me an opportunity to pave the way for my resignation.
“I’ve just been getting a little antsy. I’m almost done with my studies; there’s a lot of pressure, and soon I’m going to have to revise where I’m headed.” There, that sounded good, didn’t it?
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
I nodded but remembered he couldn’t see me and cleared my throat.
“If it comes down to it, I might have to. As much as the work at the diner has gotten me through college, it’s not where I see myself long term.”
Very diplomatic, I applauded myself.
“Right, right…” Kenneth said, his sentence trailing off at the end. He was silent for a moment, and I tried to think of something to say, but it was hard to find something to say to someone to whom I didn’t want to speak to at all.
“Alright, well, I’ll be there again tomorrow morning,” I started with every intention of ending the call.
“Your shift, that’s what I wanted to talk about. I’m only going to be able to come in after lunch, and I’d really prefer if you took the late shift tomorrow rather the earlier one.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t want you there without me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Kenneth,” I said, my voice harder. “This is going a little too far to be very honest with you. I understand your concern for me, the way you're looking out for me, and it’s very flattering. It really is. But I’m quite comfortable with my schedule, and there’s no reason for me to—”
“It’s not about your safety,” Kenneth interrupted me.
Please, God, let him not say to me that it’s because he likes me.
“What then?” I asked, unsure.
“I don’t trust you.”
The words hit me as if he’d slapped me, even though he was across a phone line.
“Excuse me?” I asked, wondering if it was possible I’d heard him wrong. I wasn’t driving very fast and still I lifted my foot off the gas so the car slowed.
“Oh, I know you’re all shocked about it; you’ve worked for me for so long. But lately a lot has been going on, and you forget that there’s been a couple of incidents on tape that I can’t just overlook.”
If he thought I was going to have sex in his office again, he was out of his mind.
“It won’t happen again,” I said.
“What, the sex, or the stealing?”
My body went cold, my fingers suddenly numb where my one hand was on the steering wheel. I gripped the phone tightly with my other hand, mashing it against my ear.
I stuttered, trying to formulate a response to that, but the truth was he’d caught me off guard.
“You didn’t think I was stupid, did you?” he asked, and the way he asked it was like an answer was going to be my ruin. I knew he wasn’t stupid, but he was scaring the hell out of me.
“This is how it’s going to work, Tanya,” he said, and the way he said my name was as if it tasted foul. It didn’t line up with any of the advances he’d been making the past couple of weeks. “You’re going to do exactly as I say, or I’m going to tell the police that you’ve had a hand in the tapes disappearing.”
“What tapes?” I asked, trying to play dumb.
“Don’t test me!” Kenneth shouted, and his voice crackled over the speaker. I winced. Kenneth took a deep breath as if righting himself. “I know it was you, so let’s not play games. We both know where we stand.”
I swallowed hard. “You have no proof,” I said. The evidence was in Saxon’s apartment. There was nothing he could do to me.
“You see, that’s where you’re wrong. I have a cd at home, a copy, that shows you giving Saxon the tape.”
My stomach dropped when he said that. I wasn’t a criminal. I’d been all big, feeling as if I was one lately, but I didn’t know what I was doing at all. “Now, of course, there’s been a bit of drama around those tapes, but I have enough evidence to send you to jail for theft.”
I gripped the steering wheel hard enough that my knuckles turned white.
“Can’t we talk about this?” I asked.
“Tanya, Tanya, Tanya,” Kenneth said, and I cringed at the triple repeat of my name. It was as if he was forcing himself to be calm, and he was scaring me now, even though he wasn’t close. “I’ve tried talking to you so many times, but you’re not open to conversation with me.”
“If that’s how you conduct a conversation, no wonder you’re still stuck in a diner,” I spat.
“I would be offended, but you’re right. I’m not the most diplomatic. Still, I would watch my tone if I were you. A lot of your freedom rides on this conversation right now.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out because he was right. And all of it was true. If he showed the police the
tapes, I was going to be convicted with robbery. And that was not cool. That was my future career down the drain. It didn’t matter what qualification you had. If you had a criminal record, the best you could do was serve cones at an ice cream shop.
“What do you want?” I asked, and the fight had gone out of my voice.
“You’re going to pull over,” Kenneth said. I pulled a face. The car behind me flashed its lights until I looked in the rearview mirror.
“You’re not pulling over, Tanya,” Kenneth said, and suddenly I realized the car behind me was him.
“You’re following me?” I asked, my blood turning to ice in my veins. I took it back to being hostile. If I could change anything, I would go home straight after work.
“I had to make sure you weren’t up to anything that could get you into more trouble,” Kenneth said. I pulled onto the shoulder of the road and put on my hazards. The other car stopped behind me.
Maybe the safest thing would have been to lock myself in my car and stay there until someone came to save me. But my white knight wasn’t going to come tearing by on his motorcycle yet again. I was running out of luck. And I was furious. It drove me out of the car more than the knowledge that I would have to fend for myself.
Kenneth was out of his car and coming toward me. I slammed my door so hard it had him lifting his eyebrows, but he kept a calm pace, walking toward me like it wasn’t the middle of the night and he hadn’t been following me around.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I asked, furious beyond rational thought, and not caring that he was my boss anymore.
“Swearing really isn’t becoming in a lady,” Kenneth said, meeting me halfway, between the two cars.
“Do you think this is funny? I have rights, you know. You can’t just stalk me like this. It’s harassment.”
Kenneth shook his head, looking like it didn’t bother him that I was throwing charges at him that he could be locked up for if I played it right. But I didn't have a hand to play, did I? Because if I called the police on him, it would just sink me. And he knew it. He stood in front of me with a smirk on his face, watching me come to my own realizations.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, the anger starting to simmer down to a slow boil.
“I want you to get in the car with me,” he said.
I shook my head. “That’s not happening.”
“I think it is,” he said and lifted his hand. He was holding something heavy and brought it down on my head quicker than my mind could register something was very wrong. My brain shut down; the world went black; and I felt the asphalt chew at the skin on my cheek before the darkness swallowed me whole.
CHAPTER 26
Darkness surrounded me like a blanket. It was wrapped around me so tightly I was struggling to breathe. I didn’t want to open my eyes. The side of my head itched like crazy, but my arms were pinned down at my sides and I couldn’t lift my hand to scratch it. I lay on my side on a slight slope, but it was soft and springy, like a cushion. I focused on all the different parts of my body, starting at my toes and working my way up, contraction muscle groups. Everything was working fine. Everything seemed to be in order. Everything except my itching head. I wanted to push my fingers into my hair and scratch it.
I became aware of a low hum, the world around me vibrating and purring, and with it, the itch turned into an ache. My head started throbbing dully, and it felt like a knife in my temple. I tried my arms again, but there was still nothing. I kept my eyes closed. My head throbbed dully, and I was aware of other sounds, too, although they seemed so far away. No, the darkness was nice and warm. And my head didn’t hurt there. I wanted to go back to it.
The more I tried to slip away again, though, the more my head started hurting, and I started to feel more and more awake. Why was I asleep, anyway? I opened my eyes and looked straight up, noticing the ceiling of the back of a car in the dim light that fell through the windows. I turned my head and my head spun, stomach rolling with nausea. It felt like my head was swimming, and I groaned, lifting my hands to my face, pushing my fingers against my forehead. Something slick and wet was on the side of my head where it hurt the most.
When I pulled my fingers away, they were darkened with blood. The metallic smell reached my nose the same time I saw it. I whimpered, trying frantically to wipe my hands on my pants. I couldn’t tear my wrists apart.
“No,” I cried out. “No, no, no!” I started squirming, and my head felt like it was going to explode. Tape around my wrists, that was what it looked like. I tried to twist them, and the skin pulled until it hurt before I stopped.
“Help!” I shouted. My voice bounced off the closed windows and came back at me. “Help!”
The shouting made my head hurt more, and I stopped, groaning, feeling like I was going to throw up. I lifted my legs and kicked the door by my feet—three loud thumps before I stopped because my body jerked from the impact and that hurt my head, too.
“Oh, God, no,” I whimpered. I tried to think back to how I got here. There was a nice big blank right in the middle of my mind where all the answers were supposed to be. I took a deep breath, and another, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. The smell in the car was familiar, and I took another deep breath. Cologne that I’d smelled before. But it wasn’t pleasant. The smell was fine, but I associated it with trouble.
Kenneth. It smelled like Kenneth. I turned my head again, much slower this time, and glanced toward the driver’s seat. It was empty, and there were no signs—besides the smell—that this was his car. There was a flicker of light outside, a car driving past. The shadows turned in an angle against the brick wall I could see through the window at my feet.
I lifted my tied legs and started kicking the door again, hoping to God someone was going to stop and help me. The bricks I saw were the side of a building. The car was parked on the side of a road, and it looked familiar. I suddenly remembered driving away from Reggie’s house, and Kenneth phoning me. I’d tried to ignore it, but I’d accidentally answered it. And then he’d followed me. The events came back slowly, like a film played frame by frame so I could keep up with my aching head.
He’d followed me. I didn’t know how long he’d been sitting outside Reggie’s house if that was what he’d done. But he’d been behind me for quite a while. I remembered the bright lights in my rearview mirror, the car that didn’t turn off at any of the streets where I crossed over. When he’d asked me to pull over I’d been an absolute idiot and done it. And I’d gotten out and confronted him.
How stupid could I get? But I was too trusting. As much as Kenneth creeped me out, I didn’t think he would do something to me. I didn’t think he would raise his hand and hit me.
I lifted my bound hands to my head again, hovering my fingers over the bump tentatively, careful not to touch it this time. He’d hit me with something, hard. I remembered that. And then he must have tied me up and shoved me into the car. But where was he now? Why wasn’t he in the car, too? What was he doing?
I tried to sit up, but my head wouldn’t allow me. Nausea rolled through me again, and I was scared I was going to throw up. Definitely a concussion. I was angry, but the pain was more, and I closed my eyes again, focusing on my breathing. I slid my hands down my clothes. I was still in that damn diner dress. And my phone wasn’t in my pocket where I’d hoped it would be. Had I left it in the car when I’d gotten out? I couldn’t remember. Maybe it was still there. Or maybe Kenneth had it. And without it, there was no way I could get attention, get someone to help me. I took a few more deep breaths.
Suddenly, the front door opened, and Kenneth climbed in, the car rocking with his weight. I took my chance. With the door open someone could hear me.
“Help!” I screamed as loud as I could. “Help!”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Kenneth said and reached for something on the passenger seat. I could hear the sound of tape being ripped off the roll, and then he came closer with a strip of gray tape. He taped my hand
s to my thighs, winding it all around my legs. Then he cut another piece and lowered it to my mouth. I shook my head from side to side to avoid him. A flash of pain stabbed into my temple, and I held still, choosing the gag over the pain. Kenneth stuck the tape over my lips, rubbing it so that it stuck all the way down. I tugged at the tape around my thighs, but I wasn’t going to get out of this one.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he said when he was done, and I jerked my head away from him on instinct, closing my eyes when the pain was back again. “I’m sorry about that. I just can’t have you screaming like that. We’re going to give people the wrong impression.”
I screamed at him, listing every obscene word I could find and hurling it at him. But the tape made it sound like a series of mumbles, and my head ached when I did it. When my mumbled shouting died down to a whimper, Kenneth chuckled. It was a warm, rich sound that brushed over my skin like velvet, and I wanted to squirm away from it.
Filthy Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Iron Bones MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 3) Page 15
