by Piper Payne
“We’re hoping that she’ll be able to tell us if Austin’s house is being haunted by a ghost,” I added, rolling my eyes.
“I’m telling you, guys, it’s totally haunted!”
Music started playing, moving us to our daily random sign-off.
“She’s the reason you took a cold shower this morning.” Max snickered.
“Happy Doomsday, guys,” I said cheerfully. “He’s the only man I know who thinks Spanx are hot.”
“Ugh! I still don’t know what those are!” Austin laughed.
“Thanks for listening! And finishing last like usual. He’s the reason they still make extra small condoms.”
Max eyed Austin, “Jerk.”
“Have a great weekend!” we all yelled in unison.
“Tonight is going to be so romantic. The resort has really gone all out!” Smack. Smack. “Your dress is totally gorgeous, and they gave you the best table in the whole restaurant with a view that overlooks the entire mountain landscape!” Smack. Smack. “I can’t wait until you see the inside of the cabin. I think Shawn White stayed in the exact same one last year!” Smack. Smack.
The event coordinator, Lisa Connor, gave me a tour of the resort. She’d taken three gulps of air between her run on sentences about how attractive Austin was and every memorized fact and detail about the resort’s architecture and history. She was the same height as me so she was smacking her gum right in my face in the enclosed area of the crowded gondola. I smiled, pretending to listen. I was never good at friendly girl interaction.
After the show everyone was in a hurry to leave because of the weather. The morning news gave a snow advisory warning and it looked like the weatherman was right. Instead of us staying the night in the main resort I was being dragged up the steep mountainside to a two-story cabin, holding on tightly as the gondola swayed back and forth. Oddly, no one else seemed concerned.
Our cabin was the first off the lift, right next to a smaller ski lodge. The furnishings were exquisite with rustic brown leather couches, hand carved tables and chairs, and its decor was colored and themed around the landscape that surrounded us. As I walked into the kitchen, I was happy to see a fully stocked bar.
“I have to go and finish up a few things in the lobby,” Lisa said, tucking her hands into the pockets while rocking back and forth on her heels, “so if you want, you can relax here for a half hour then take the gondola back down to the spa for your appointments. I’ll meet you afterward with your dress.”
I didn’t realize how much I missed Lisa and her annoying gum chewing until she was gone. I stood there by the window fiddling with the origami bird still in my pocket while watching her race off in the snow. I wasn’t about to stay here by myself. The resort already had our luggage brought up to our rooms so I’d just grab my journal and sit and write in the lobby so I wasn’t alone.
The cabin had three bedrooms; the master was straight out of a winter wonderland wet dream—white fur blankets and a sleigh bed. There was a double-sided fireplace that connected to a large bathtub with a window on the other side that overlooked the mountain landscape. I saw the storm rippling over the mountains peaks like a slow moving plague, an uneasy dark, gray mixture creeping toward us with the intent to wreak havoc.
I heard Nancy’s singsong voice bellowing like the stormy clouds, deep and meaningful from her hallucinating high brain. “A brave man will stay, a coward will run, but no matter where they are, the storm will find them. The coward lives on when the storm is gone because it was the brave man who hid the coward behind him.” Chills ran over my skin at the memory. I wrapped my arms around me and sighed. She always knew she was a coward. I wondered in death if she was brave?
A burning sensation warmed my neck. I flinched in response to the sting of something pricking and spreading under my skin. A fog swept in, thick glue clotting my brain. I felt exhausted and unclear, as if I couldn’t fight the sleep that my body had been craving any longer. Stumbling with heavy feet, I dragged myself into the bedroom until the comforter caught and surround me like a cloud.
Ring … ring … ring …
Ring … ring … ring …
Ring … ring … ring …
I groggily tried to lift my head, but my skull weighed a hundred pounds. I pried open my eyes, my vision wavering back and forth, unable to focus on my surroundings.
Ring … ring … ring …
Ring … ring … ring …
Ring … ring … ring …
I went to move my limp arms but as I became more conscious, I could feel the rope bound tightly around my wrists and ankles. My fingers were tingling, but so were my eyelids, tongue, and feet. The room shifted and I realized I was no longer horizontal lying down on a bed, but instead was tied to a chair in the bathroom. Someone was stomping around me, their footsteps like an army march.
“This is the third time her phone has rung. Someone might come looking for her soon.” A breath full of bourbon flooded into my nose. I recognized the angry voice, but my mind was too hazy and sluggish to process it. “The drug is wearing off. Help wake her up,” he snapped.
“With pleasure.” The purr and poison of Ashley’s voice kicked my slow moving body with adrenaline.
The minute everything started to register my face stung from her palm slapping me, then again with the back of her hand, the bite of her diamond slicing into my lip.
“I said wake her up, not destroy her face!” Large footsteps pounded toward me on the tile floor. My head throbbed with each step. Strong hands lifted my chin while cold liquid was forced down my throat. The taste of my own metallic blood made my stomach heave. I choked in resistance, causing Franklin to squeeze my cheeks forcefully with his callused fingers until the pinch of pain made my mouth open again.
“It’s just water. Drink!” His voice was sharp and demanding, his grip tight enough to peel skin. The glass he held up to my mouth kept banging against my teeth as the remaining liquid spilled down my throat. The minute he pulled the glass away, I vomited all over his hands.
“GODDAMNIT!”
With blurry eyes I could see him raise his hand to repeat what Ashley had just done to my face, but instead clenched his fist in restraint. “Ashley, clean this up!” he roared.
“Oh no, I’m not—”
“CLEAN IT UP!” His voice was murderous.
He tried one more time to get me to drink, this time filling up the glass from the bathroom faucet. I gulped down every drop. I realized I needed it. My body absorbed it like a sponge.
“You’re done here, Ashley. Go down stairs and wait for me.”
“What? You promised I could—”
“I promised nothing!” he said through clenched teeth.
My vision began to return and I was met with a pair of eyes that were cold, hollow, and dead. Lines etched angrily into Franklin’s forehead, all of his misdeeds haunting his face like a map. This was what Landon would look like in thirty years, except Franklin was lacking my favorite color of blue.
“What do you want from me?” I croaked, my throat feeling like sandpaper.
He smirked into the mirror as he walked over to the sink and washed his hands. “Don’t play games, Little Bird, you know what I want.”
I waited silently. I didn’t know what he knew. How did I play this? “I don’t know what you’re talking about? Why are you doing this?” I cried.
“Liar!” He came crashing forward, pulling my chair toward him as if it weighed nothing at all. “Don’t lie to me. Where’s the tape?”
“Untie me!” I screamed, fighting my restraints.
“You’re in no place to make demands. Tell me where the tape is!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I looked him in the eyes when I said it. It seemed like the tactic Landon used when he was lying to me and I believed him.
“I don’t trust you,” he said suspiciously as he dried his wet hands on my shirt, pulling it from my stomach like a hand towel, lifting it up enough to see underneat
h.
“Yet you trust Ashley?” I asked.
He walked into the master bedroom, closed and then locked the door. “No, but she trusts me. Believe me, I have plans for her.”
“What, to marry your son and make him miserable?” I scoffed, watching him lazily stride back into the bathroom, fiddling with his watch.
He arrogantly laughed at my comment. “No, to take the fall for whatever happens to you.”
“Right, which is …” I let the question linger. He walked back over to the sink taking a moment to look himself in the eyes before splashing water on his face, his reflection a beacon of resolution reminding him what needed to be done. He grabbed the porcelain, leaning toward himself. Hyde egging on Jekyll. “Where’s the tape?” he growled.
“In a safety deposit box in a bank.”
“Where?”
“In Salt Lake,” I said softly, hanging my head low.
“Smart, Little Bird. You’re going to take me to go get it.”
“Franklin! We have a problem!” Ashley began pounding on the bedroom door, startling us both.
“What?” he snapped, walking over to unlock the door, letting her crash inside the bathroom shrieking and sobbing while waiving my phone in her hand. “He loves her! I’ve been listening to her voicemails and reading through her messages! He said he loves her!” Tears and snot ran from her face causing her caked on makeup to run like melted crayons.
“Darling, no need to panic. Those text messages were from me. The voicemails all planned out by Landon.” My stomach curled inside itself. I felt the water churn, threatening to come up my esophagus again.
“But she fucked him!” Confusion and anger plagued her face as she lunged toward me, scratching her nails down my chest. “I’m going to fucking kill you!” she screeched.
All I could do was sit and take it as her claws shredded into my skin. Franklin ran over grabbing her by the waist, ripping her off of me. It was like watching him wrestle a rabid dog; he tried to calm her down but when that proved useless he opened up his suit coat displaying an inner pocket of syringes. He did have plans for her. Anyone else he would’ve snapped their neck by now. He pulled out a syringe, fumbling to catch it as it rolled onto the bedroom floor thanks to Ashley’s flailing limbs. Not fucking around anymore, he pulled out another, used his teeth to pull off the cap, and forcefully jabbed it in her neck, restraining her until she went completely limp in his arms.
“Well, this should be much simpler from here.” I watched in horror as he dropped her lifeless body on the ground; it was undeserved relief that I could still see her breathing.
Franklin picked my phone off of the floor and looked through it, his face scowling as his eyes zigzagged back and forth reading my texts. “Not to put a damper on all of your plans to kidnap me,” I hesitantly interrupted his invasion of privacy, “but there’s slight problem.” He looked up at me as I uncomfortably wiggled in my restraints.
“And what would that be?”
“I have a date tonight. A very public date. I’m sure you’re aware of it. If I don’t show up at exactly 4:00 p.m. to get ready, I guarantee by 4:15 p.m. everyone will be looking for me. Not to mention all of the radio Amber Alerts that come along with my job if I go missing.” I watched his face as he chewed on the information. He looked at his watch then chewed over it again.
“I just want my life go back to normal, meaning before I met Landon and found the stupid tape. I never even watched the damn thing! Which scares me because you want it so bad and I have no clue why! What did my mom do? What is she doing on the tape that has me tied to this fucking chair? Please tell me!”
He laughed at the ridiculousness of my words. I thought if I just kept playing stupid then maybe, just maybe, he’d believe me.
“Bullshit!” He sneered. “You have until noon tomorrow to hand deliver it to me at Landon’s office. You know where that is.” He winked, reaching in his pants pocket. “This…” he pulled out a tiny gadget “…stays in your phone this time.” He popped open my phone and attached it. “You will tell no one. You will not run. You will not go to the authorities. You will do exactly as I say.” He leaned down directly in my face; his upper lip curled showing a sharp canine. “If you’re not able to comply with my requests, I will find June and gut her like a fish while you watch. And if you really try to fuck me over, I’ll send you both into a room with her uncle before I do it. An unnerving fact for you is that I’ve known where she’s been this entire time.” I swallowed hard, knowing he would do every single thing he just said.
“This will track your phone’s texts, conversations, and it also has a GPS. My son was obviously incompetent installing it the first time. You will keep this on you. If you don’t, I will know. I have eyes and ears everywhere.”
He stood up snapping my phone back together, walking slowly behind me to untie my ankles and wrists. It was quiet for a moment, and that brief haunting silence made me shudder. I could feel his hot breath creeping over my shoulder, choppy and ragged in my ear, it was as if the sickness of his soul was trying to tell me something.
His fingers started to release the rope around my wrists; out of the corner of my eye I could see his gaze burning on my breasts, my shirt hanging low with claw marks, red and swollen, guiding his path. He paused for a moment then, with his disgusting soft fingertips, pulled down my shirt and slowly traced the skin outside the cup of my bra. My skin chilled with fear, goose bumps stabbing all over my body. He stuffed his nose into my ear, breathing hard, letting his lips touch the skin around my erratic pulse. I bit my tongue hard, blood pooling in my mouth.
“Turned on?” He hummed, nuzzling into my neck. I leaned as far away as my restraints would allow, tears pouring silently from my eyes. “You’re a fucking whore just like your mother!” He growled, spitting his disgust. I heard him gathering the phlegm from his mouth. Yellow saliva ran down my neck into my cleavage as he grinded his erection against my hands as he removed the rope slowly and precisely from my wrists.
“You remind me of him … Patrick, too stubborn for his own fucking good. And, well, you know what happened next …” I sat there as he untied my ankles, my hands already free but still clenched behind me in fists, too afraid to move.
He stood up grabbing a handful of my hair yanking my head backwards so it slammed into the top rail of the white wooden chair I’d been tied to. I winced in pain. “Noon tomorrow, Larkin,” he whispered, taking his time to smell the brown waves grasped in his hands.
Before he left with Ashley thrown over his shoulder, he paused in the doorway and said, “Oh and, Larkin … please say hi to Max for me. It was a pleasure doing business with him.”
I waited until I heard the front door close to let out a strangled cry, covering my mouth with my trembling hands. My body convulsed, fear and the relief that I was still alive ricocheting through my body. I could feel myself on the edge of hysteria, fighting against it as I crashed down the stairs so I could find a safe phone to call June. As I grabbed my coat and flung open the front door, there stood Lisa mother fucking Connor.
“Larkin, we’re sorry y-you missed your s-spa appointment,” she stammered, trying to ignore my appearance. “I’ll take you d-down to the salon w-where they’ll start getting you ready for your date.” I wiped my face with my hands, trying to dry my tears. His spit had already dried. “We better get a move on. The wind is really starting to pick up and they’re about to close the gondola because of the storm.”
My final unraveling thought: I didn’t know who I could trust anymore.
“You’re looking so much better. The color has finally come back to your skin. I got you some Aspirin for your headache.” Lisa tried handing me two tiny white pills but I shook my head refusing anything that could potentially drug me again.
I sat in a chair, poked and prodded with curling irons and makeup brushes, pretending nothing was wrong. “Here it is! It was hiding in my cabinet.” My hairstylist Ellen came dancing back into the room, pink hair and bushy
-tailed. “This stuff is like liquid gold. It’s going to make your hair shine and feel so silky he’s not going to be able to resist running his hands through it!”
She spritzed the concoction then twirled me around to face the mirror, beaming at her masterpiece as all of the other hens in the salon clucked and balked over my appearance. All I saw when I looked into the mirror was a dirty, pathetic girl. Nothing could make that pretty.
I whispered to Ellen, “Where’s the restroom?” Lisa was finally preoccupied. She hadn’t left my side since the cabin, eyes always watching. “Down the hall, second door on your right.” She smiled brightly.
“Hello?” June answered warily.
“It’s me.” I said in a hushed whisper, shutting myself behind a bathroom stall door. I’d pickpocketed Ellen’s phone.
“Larkin, what the hell? We’ve been trying to get ahold of you for hours!”
“I need you to listen I don’t have much time, I don’t know who’s watching me.” I’d backed myself into a corner, gripping the phone tightly.
“What? What’s going on?” Her voice was panicked.
“Franklin and Ashley were at the cabin. Franklin sedated me and when I woke up they’d tied me to a chair in the bathroom. He wants the tape June. He’s threatened to kill you if I don’t bring him the tape by noon tomorrow.”
“Oh my God! Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“Don’t worry about me. It’s you I’m worried about! I don’t know what to do or who we can trust! He said before he left to tell Max hello and it’d been a pleasure doing business with him?” I grabbed my mouth as a sob broke loose. “What does that mean?”
“No. There’s no way. He’s lying! There’s no way Max would be involved in this. It just doesn’t make sense.”
