It was now Monday, still part of their extended weekend, and Trevor headed down to the kitchen to make breakfast, leaving Symóne sleeping peacefully. After a routine call to his mom and brother, Trevor made omelets and sliced up a peach and a hand full of strawberries.
Smelling the food, Symóne awakened and rushed to the bathroom to empty her bladder. She freshened up and went to her closet for a long cotton sundress that she would usually wear to lounge around the house in.
She slipped on a pair of flip flops and headed down to the kitchen where she found Trevor placing food on plates for the two of them.
“Mmm, that looks and smells delicious,” she chimed as she approached him for a morning kiss. He put down the pan that he'd just taken the omelets out of and wiped his hands clean on the kitchen towel, then pulled her to him to kiss her properly.
“So what would you like to do today babe?” he asked her as he took their plates to the breakfast table.
“I was just thinking about that. Why don't we rent a couple of movies and just sit here and relax and enjoy some quiet time together? It's not often that we aren't working through the weekend on my projects or one of your cases. We only have three and a half more months of freedom from parenthood, so we should definitely get some quality time in,” Symóne suggested.
“Sounds good to me. Is there anything in particular you want to watch?” he checked with her. He would be going out to get the movies while she took it easy for the day.
“A drama and a comedy. If you want, you can even get a horror flick,” she raised an eyebrow at him with a sly smirk on her face.
They finished breakfast and Trevor went up to get dressed for his trip to the store for movies and some of Symóne's favorite snacks. Before he left, she had moved to the sofa and turned on the television to watch some of her favorite design shows in hopes of some inspiration or ideas on any of her upcoming projects.
Trevor leaned over her for a kiss, then promised to be quick.
Chapter 2
Parking at the store, Trevor got out and went inside. He searched the isles for candy, then picked up a pack of cookies and headed to check out. As he left the store, he walked up to the movie kiosk on the sidewalk and scrolled through the selection and picked four movies. After paying for them, he waited for them to dispense and stuck them into the grocery bag as they came out.
Finally getting the last movie, he took out his phone and looked through some of his emails on the way to his Range Rover. He opened the car and sat the bags on the passenger seat and started the engine. Suddenly, he felt a sting in the back of his neck and his vision became blurred.
Everything went black…
* * *
Now struggling to see, his head pounding as the light peered through the creases of his eyes, he heard a voice echo in the distance. It sounded like someone was calling his name, but he wasn't sure. His head felt heavy and it swayed back and forth as he tried to regain control of himself.
Everything around him was bright and filmy. The smell was stale, like old wood and mildew. He smelled water—fishy and rank. His vision was beginning to show forms and colors and a figure appeared in front of him, seeming to be kneeling before him. He felt a hand rest on his leg and the voice called his name again.
“Trevor…Trevor?”
It was a female's voice. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it to a face, at least not until he could fully see her.
“Where am I?” he asked. His throat dry, and his lips even drier.
“You're home baby,” she said.
He gasped. When she said that, his memory pulled up a woman from his past. He could see a little clearer now, but not enough to see details. He could tell it was her; the short dark brown hair…it was the woman from the store and the video footage at his firm. Could this have been her all along? He wondered.
She leaned closer to his face, but he turned away from her. “Awe don't be like that Trevor. You used to enjoy my kisses,” she told him.
He tried to stand but couldn't, he was tied down. His ankles to the legs of a chair, and his wrists behind his back.
“Let me go!” he demanded. His vision now clearer, almost back to normal. It was her…older, but still her.
“I can't do that Trevor. We have some unfinished business to tend to,” she stood and walked to a wooden screen door and looked out at the lake.
Trevor looked around himself, realizing he was in a cabin, old with rotting wood. Cob-webs laced the corners of the ceilings, broken boards above the windows let in a little sunlight, and the smell of old linen and furniture filled the air. It made his skin crawl to be in such filth, but this was not his main concern.
He worried about Symóne, but didn't want to inform his kidnapper of his wife if she had no knowledge of her. He began to question her, wanting as much information as possible.
“Why are you doing this? What is it you want from me?” he demanded.
“No, no, no. That's not how this works. I…ask the questions and you answer them,” she turned back to face him.
He noticed that she hadn't changed much. Aside from an extra few pounds in all the right places, and more mature facial features, she looked just the same.
He refrained from irritating her so that she would tell him what she wanted and he could go home to his wife.
“So…Trevor Harrison of Harrison and Moore, how's life been treating you so far?”
“I can't complain, and you?”
Her face frowned, her eyes narrowed, “Didn't I tell you that I will ask the questions?” she snarled.
“Yes.” he responded, afraid to say more. She seemed to be a bit off to him. A little disturbed compared to the past.
“Anyway, I was doing pretty well until about a year ago. I had everything Trevor, but that's no longer the case,” she sounded sad.
He almost asked her what happened, but decided to let her do the questioning as she had stated before.
She began to pace the floor as she started with what she wanted him to know first.
“I'm sure you know that after college, I went to Med School? Well…you wouldn't know that because you didn't care to keep in touch!” she sounded angry this time.
“We agreed to part ways and pursue careers separately. It was your idea,” he reminded her.
“Shut up! Just shut…up!” she scoffed, then slapped him across his face—hard.
After hissing at the initial sting, he licked his lips as the dryness caused his bottom lip to split and a tiny bubble of blood raised to the surface.
She gasped, then her face became softer as she stepped closer to him. She reached to caress his face, but he turned from her touch. The motion angered her, but she kept her cool.
“I know that it was my idea to go our separate ways, but you could have fought for me Trevor! I waited for months for you to at least call me and tell me that you missed me,” she almost whispered.
“I did miss you Lori, but I couldn't afford to get distracted while I was in college. I had plans, the Law School I wanted to attend holds the highest standard of drive and focus, with no tolerance for slackers. You know how seriously I take my plans and I would have never become what I am today if we had stayed together. What we had was fun and I really enjoyed being with you, but that was all I could give you then,” he confessed.
She sighed heavily, “What about now? I'm free now,” she stated with hopefulness.
“It's too late Lori. So much has happened and my life is right where I want it to be,” he said with sympathy in his voice.
“It's because of her! Isn't it?” the snarl returned.
He tried not to respond to her notion, but let out a gush of air. “Lori…we can't get back what we had. Too much time has passed and things have changed tremendously. I'm sorry, but there is no way that we can ever have what we had before. You should have moved on by now. What happened?” he asked. He could tell there was a story, but wanted to hear it from her.
She withdrew, backing away
from him. She turned and walked outside, leaving him sitting there. He heard a car crank and drive across rock and leaves.
He leaned forward, trying to see if he recognized this place, but he couldn't see much from where he was sitting. As the sound of the vehicle disappeared, he began to rock forward until he was able to stand with the very heavy, solid wood chair that he was duct taped to.
Across the room was another door, solid wood, but a window was opened next to it, where tattered thin curtains swayed from the breeze coming through them. He saw that his Range Rover was parked outside and he started for the door.
His steps were small, careful, and the floor creaked loudly with every move. All the while, Trevor wished he could take bigger steps and hurry before Lori returned.
Just beside the window was a shelf filled with old books. Some were cookbooks and some were catalogs and magazines. Beside it, was a wooden counter with cabinets below that were missing its doors. When he finally made it to the cabinets, he looked around for a knife to cut himself free, but nothing was out. His guess was if there was any type of cutlery there, it would be in the drawers.
Looking at the rusty and dusty knobs that were attached to the moldy wood of the drawers, he thought, this is very disgusting. His Germaphobia was kicking in and he shivered at the mere thought of touching anything. However, he didn't know how long she would be gone, and he turned his back to the cabinet to use his hands to open the drawer. When he turned to see what was in it, he almost puked. Skeleton bones of a large rodent and a large ball of what may have been cheese at some time, but was covered in a furry substance—mold, had him stumbling to move from the drawer. How he wished he hadn't touched the drawer, but he needed to cut himself free. Just as he had calmed down enough to psych himself up enough to try another drawer, he heard the tires driving across the rock and leaves headed back in his direction.
He let out a gush of air and knew that he would never make it back to where he started from in time. He stopped and let the chair back down and sat, waiting for his ex-girlfriend to come in and catch him wandering.
The engine turned off and a door shut loudly. Her steps could be heard as she approached the cabin. She came through the door and instantly tensed. She sat the brown paper bag down on the table beside the dusty old flower printed sofa and rushed toward him aggressively.
“Did I say you could move?” she snarled in his face.
“Lori, please. Whatever you're trying to do here, it's not going to end well. You have to let me go. This is a crime and you should stop now before something irreparable happens,” he warned her.
She took a less defensive stand and folded her arms across her chest and glared at him with purpose in her eyes. “Trevor, you are going to give me what I want. Your life as you know it, is over! I am going to be Mrs. Trevor Harrison and we are going to be happy together!”
It was in that moment, he realized that she was not rational. No normal person would believe that they could accomplish such a goal by force. He then noticed that her face twitched the angrier she became. Had she gone mad and escaped from a mental institute? All kinds of thoughts were flooding Trevor's mind. He needed to calm her and get her to trust him so that she would let him go.
She got behind him and pulled back on the chair he was in and had to readjust her grip. The chair was heavy, and with Trevor's weight added to it, she struggled to move him. Taking deep breaths between each step as she continued dragging him back to where she had him initially, she was fully drenched in sweat by the time he was returned to his original place.
“Lori…what happened to you? This is not how I imagined your future. You are a smart, beautiful woman with so much going for you, who did this to you?” he questioned.
Seeing a similar behavior pattern in her that he had experienced once before in one of his cases, he thought it better to be kind and gentle. He had no idea where he was, what her plans were, and how messed up she truly was. All he could think about was Symóne and their unborn baby.
“You did this to me Trevor!” she screeched in his face. “But now, you are going to fix it…” she started but heard a helicopter flying around outside.
She rushed to the door and stood out on the porch and looked up toward the sound. They were under a somewhat thick canopy of trees, but Trevor's Range Rover was metallic gray and could be spotted in the day time if someone were looking for it.
Lori went out to the jeep and opened the bay door on the back of it and pulled out a camouflage net, quickly tossing it over Trevor's car, then rushed back inside. The helicopter had done several circles around the property, then hovered over the lake for a few minutes, then the sound of the propeller blades faded, headed off into the distance.
He wondered how long had he been there, if someone was already looking for him. At least he hoped they were looking for him. When he left his house, it was late morning, but he could tell that the sun was now blazing hot, probably two to three o'clock in the afternoon. Three to four hours he guessed was how long he had been missing. If Symóne became worried and tried to contact him with no luck, a simple call to his partner Vince would set a search in motion. At least he believed this is how it would happen.
“You do know if someone is looking for me, they'll track my truck?” he warned her.
“I disabled your GPS, and your phone is in the bottom of the lake,” she grinned triumphantly.
Trevor's head dropped. How did he not see someone in his car when he got in?
Now he needed to figure out how to get Lori to let him go so that he could get back home to his family.
“What time is it?” he asked her.
“Why? Do you have somewhere to be?” she giggled.
“Yes, home,” he replied. “I want to know how long I've been here?” he tried.
“It's 3:20 pm,” she looked at her watch.
She turned and walked through a doorway and entered another room. He could hear her moving around, either rummaging through something or cleaning.
Trevor's bladder was beginning to tighten as he needed to relieve himself. He wondered would she untie him for a bathroom break.
“Lori, I have to go to the bathroom…please,” he called out to her.
She didn't respond, but the sound of rusted metal creaking became louder as she approached him. She entered the room with a metal bucket and sat it on the floor in front of him. When she let go of the handle, it clanged against the bucket loudly. She then looked to be in thought, and suddenly she was smiling. Lori reached for Trevor's belt and began to undo his pants.
“Just untie my hands, I can do it myself,” he complained. He didn't want her touching him and wanted an opportunity to stretch his fingers and arms. The tingling sensation in his hands and fingers were numbness from the lack of sufficient blood flow to them.
“Didn't you just tell me how smart I am? Why would I untie you so that you could try to escape?” she questioned without looking up. Her hair caressed his face as she unzipped his pants, then began to pull them down below his waist.
“You are going to have to raise up Trevor so that you don't soak your britches,” she giggled.
He really had to go, so he attempted to rise just enough to let her get his boxer briefs down under his nature to let him relieve himself. She reached to pull it out, but he withdrew, stopping her.
“Please don't do that. Just pull them down enough to let it hang and I'll do it myself,” he suggested to her.
“Why so shy Trevor? You used to love for me to handle it before. I've played with it for hours at a time, now suddenly I can't touch it?”
“You have to understand…I'm married, it's just uncomfortable to have you touching me in certain areas,” he said with plea in his eyes.
Her thoughts were just the opposite, but she gave him his wish for the moment. She needed him to feel that she was trustworthy so that she could get things out of him later.
Lori continued to pull Trevor's pants down far enough to let him fall out and he stood,
bent over the bucket and began to relieve himself. He stopped abruptly when he overshot the bucket and tried to back up. Lori snickered, then picked up the bucket and held it under him in a way he couldn't possibly miss it, so that he could finish. Just the sight of him, the part she wanted to connect to doing what came natural, made her smile. Trevor was a blessed man, perfect in so many ways. He had every reason to be confident in himself. Where were his flaws?
Knowing how obsessively compulsive Trevor has always been, when he was finished, she held a paper towel under him, careful not to touch him as promised, and dried him.
The difficult task at hand was getting his briefs and pants back up without touching him still.
“Trevor, I have to put you back in, unless…you just want to hang out for a little while?” she gawked at him, smirking with intent to enjoy the view.
“Lori, please…just untie me and let me do it myself,” he sounded pitiful, playing on her emotions. It was clear that she still harbored feelings for him and looked up in thought.
She went into the kitchen and grabbed the duct tape that she had obviously used to bound him previously and pulled off a long piece and wrapped it around one of his arms and through the wooden bars of the chair, attaching him firmly to it. She then cut the tape that was wrapped around his wrists, freeing only one of his hands.
He flexed his fingers and wound his wrist to regain some of the feeling back in that hand.
“Okay—put it back in then put your hand back behind you. Don't try anything Trevor, or you'll regret it,” she warned him.
He put himself back inside his underwear, making sure to adjust it for comfort, as he didn't know how long he would be sitting there. When he let his arm dangle behind him, she tore off another long piece of duct tape and reached for his free hand. As she pulled it closer to the hand that was tied to the back of the chair, he grabbed her wrist, squeezing it hard, then twisted her arm in a way that forced her to move as he wanted her to. She dropped the tape and tried to grab his hand to pull his fingers from her wrists, but he had pulled her in front of him.
Hostile Vengeance Page 2
