Betrayed: Days of the Rogue (42 page)

“The bathroom is here. Just a
minute.” He went to her wrist and fiddled with the ropes adding an
extra length and then did the same thing with her ankle. “There you
go, now you can use the facilities, but the door will have to stay
cracked. Don’t worry though, I won’t peek.” He walked over to the
side of the bed and helped her up. “Feel okay on your own?” A look
of concern was etched on his face and Eve found herself nodding,
totally speechless over the bizarre situation she was in.

Getting to her feet she entered the
bathroom and tried to shut the door. The rope that trailed after
her kept it from latching completely. She cursed softly but then,
since there was nothing she could do about it, turned to look
around the room. It wasn’t a large bathroom and the ropes gave her
enough freedom of movement that she could reach the toilet and
sink. Of course, with a bed attached to the other end of the ropes,
there was no way she’d be able to climb out the room’s small
window. Still, she took a moment to look outside. The sight that
met her was disheartening. Gordie lived in the middle of nowhere.
There was no sign of a neighbouring house she could run to if she
ever managed to escape.

With a frustrated sigh, she did
what she had to do. At least the room was impeccably clean, the
faint odor of bleach permeating the air. Turning on the water to
wash her hands, she used the white noise to mask that fact that she
was snooping in the cabinets. Unfortunately, there was nothing
inside that would help her escape. Spare toilet tissue, some soap,
a new toothbrush and a few towels were the sum total of the
contents. No handy razor blades like you’d find in a nicely plotted
movie.

She stared at her reflection in the
mirror. Scratches adorned her jaw line and extended down onto her
neck, evidence of where the wolf had clawed her. A quick
examination of the rest of her showed similar marks on her ribs and
shoulder interspersed with the beginnings of bruises. The wolf
attack had definitely not been a bad dream, and Rafe hadn’t been
kidding when he’d said how dangerous the creatures could be.

Slowly, her hands clenched into
fists. If only she’d listened to Rafe the first time and left
Grassy Hills, she wouldn’t have been attacked, and she wouldn’t be
stuck in a bathroom, tethered to a bed, with a crazy man waiting
outside the door. She’d be in some tiny apartment right now,
preparing for her gallery showing and watching reruns on TV like
any normal person. If only… Of course, she’d never have gotten to
know Rafe, but given the way he’d dismissed her today that might
have been preferable. Her heart protested that conclusion, but she
ignored it.

“Are you all right?” Gordie called
the inquiry, and she realized she couldn’t stall any longer.

“Just a minute.” Turning off the
water, she left the bathroom. Gordie was sitting on the bed,
drinking soda and waiting for her with a look of utmost patience on
his face.

“All done?”

“Um…yeah.”

“Good. Tomorrow, we’ll see about
getting you in the shower, but I don’t want those bandages getting
wet today. I’ll find a bag to wrap around them when the time
comes.” He got to his feet and patted the mattress. “Hop on, and
I’ll move you back.”

Feeling extremely odd about it, Eve
complied, and Gordie wheeled the bed back to its original position
and shortened the ropes again.

“There we go. I know it’s awkward,
but experience has taught me that keeping my guests anchored to the
bed is the best solution. It allows for mobility but prevents
escape.” He stated the facts blandly while putting the longer
lengths of rope away. “I’ll bring you some supper. Do you prefer
hamburgers or hotdogs?”

“Um…burgers. No cheese.” She gave
the answer weakly her mind still transfixed on the statement he’d
made about his
other
guests. This obviously wasn’t the first
time he’d kidnapped someone.

“Great.” He beamed at her. “Eve,
I’m really pleased you’re taking this so well. Not everyone is as
understanding.” Giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, he left.

As the door shut behind him, Eve
slumped against the headboard, a feeling of faintness washing over
her. Guests. Plural. With an ‘s’ which meant not just one before
but multiple persons. And apparently he hadn’t been caught yet. She
didn’t even want to contemplate what had happened to his previous
guests. Had no one reported them missing? Or was Gordie just that
clever?

And speaking of reporting someone
missing, no one was going to miss her! The realization made her
stomach clench. Rafe thought she was on her way to Calgary. Caro
thought she was happily living with Rafe… And had the hiker even
reported what had happened? The fact that he’d run off rather than
trying to help her didn’t bode well. It could be weeks before
anyone realized she’d disappeared!

She forced herself to take deep
breaths, refusing to faint and present Gordie with a helpless
victim. As long as she was conscious she could plot, defend
herself, or do whatever needed to be done.

Okay, time to apply cool logic.
What had she learned from her conversation with Gordie? He’d done
this before. He didn’t seem to be planning on hurting her
immediately; after all, he’d talked about a shower tomorrow. Mind
you, the thought of showering with Gordie on the other side of a
partially open door creeped her out, so she pushed that thought
aside. What else? He was going to feed her supper. Supper? What
time was it?

Craning her neck, she looked around
for a clock. There wasn’t one in sight but through a gap in the
window curtains she could see that sun was getting low in the sky.
How long had she been under the effects of that sedative? And what
had Gordie been doing all that time?

Chapter 44

Rafe stood leaning with his elbows
propped on the hood of the truck, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
He’d pulled the truck off to the side of the road when the phone
had started to ring, hoping Reno finally had some good news for
him. The owner of the local gas station was proving hard to track
down, and it was taking a lot longer to gather information on
Gordie than anyone had anticipated.

Unfortunately, the conversation
wasn’t going as he’d hoped, and he was trying not to break Brandi’s
cell phone by squeezing it too tight. With great effort, he was
also controlling his voice. It really wasn’t Reno’s fault that
information was so slow in coming.

“So you’re telling me that shortly
after that first call we got from the towing company, Gordie showed
up at the gas station, returned the truck, then left again?”

“Yep. That’s what the man told me
when I tracked him down at his home.”

“But what about Eve? Didn’t he
think to ask if Gordie saw her?”

“Apparently not. Gordie came and
left before they could even talk. Privet was pissed off about that,
too. He’d wanted Gordie to stay and run the pumps for him. Privet’s
family has the ’flu, and his wife wanted him home right away. I
guess he didn’t have time to waste chasing after Gordie to get
details on what seemed to be a simple service call.”

Rafe raked his fingers through his
hair in frustration. “And Privet doesn’t even know where this guy
lives?”

“Well, he gave us an address from
the employment records, but it turned out to be bogus. Brandi’s
contacted a friend at Lycan Link, and he’s trying to see if he can
access government documents to find out anything about the man. The
guy’s name is Gordon Grant, but who knows if that’s an alias or
not.”

“So basically we have nothing.”

“Well, I did find out one
thing.”

“What’s that?” Rafe pinched the
bridge of his nose, hoping for some good news.

“Eve’s flat tire was no
coincidence. I was checking it out, and when I unscrewed the valve
cap it was already loose. Those things don’t become loose on their
own.”

Rafe swore and stared up at the
darkening sky, cursing himself for his unknowing part in all of
this. “I sent her away, thinking she’d be safer. She probably came
back to fill up her gas tank before heading to Calgary, and that’s
when Gordie tampered with it.”

“Yeah, he likely had a valve core
remover with him. It would look like he was checking the air
pressure, but he was actually ensuring she’d slowly get a flat and
be stranded.”

“He probably planned to follow her,
but when she headed towards my place, he got cold feet thinking I’d
be around. Then, when the call came in for a tow truck, he must
have realized she was on her own, and the plan was back on
again.”

“That’s what it looks like. Sorry,
Rafe. I wish I had something more positive to tell you.”

“It’s okay. Keep me posted.” Rafe
ended the call and then slammed his hand into the hood of the
truck. A definite dent showed in the surface, but at the moment he
didn’t care.

Dammit, he’d been travelling back
and forth on county roads, for well over an hour, trying to pick up
a trail with no luck. Damien was searching on foot, checking in
with him every fifteen minutes, but he’d yet to pick up a scent
either.

It had bothered him no end to let
Damien do the tracking, but the fact remained that Damien was a
trained Enforcer, and he wasn’t. The other man’s nose was more
skilled at detecting scents than his own would ever be. Still, he’d
made Damien promise to wait for him if he found anything.

Where the hell had Gordie holed up,
and why did he have Eve? Rafe cursed himself for not keeping Eve at
his side. He’d thought by sending her away she’d be safe, but it
seems he’d only pushed her into the arms of a stalker. And Gordie
had to be a stalker; there was no way he could believe that Eve
would willingly run off with the man.

Drawing a mental image of Gordie,
Rafe considered him. Average height, a bit overweight but with
well-muscled arms that gave evidence of the heavy work he did as an
apprentice mechanic. His hair was light brown and cut in a slightly
long military style. There was nothing particularly remarkable
about the man that would make anyone notice him.

Rafe growled, hating the word
average at that moment. An average looking man, the kind no one
noticed, who could blend in with a crowd, walk in and out of a
store and not receive a second glance. If Gordie was taking Eve
across the country, no one would remember seeing him. How the hell
were they ever going to track him down?

A sound from the field across the
road drew his attention, and he looked up to see Damien trotting
towards him. The wolf crossed the road and then transformed into
the man. It wasn’t a smooth transition, and Damien looked pissed
off when he was finally in human form again. An educated guess
would be that his wolf was reluctant to give up control. Definitely
not a good sign, but not a priority at the moment.

“Any luck?” Rafe didn’t try to hide
the hope in his voice.

“No.” Damien’s scowl showed his
frustration.

“Damn.” He hit the truck again
creating another dent. “Nothing here, either.”

“Reno hasn’t called yet?” Damien
looked at him in surprise.

“He called, but had no useful
information. Gordie returned the tow truck and then left before
telling Privet anything.” He shook his head. “The address on his
employment form is a fake. We don’t even know if his name is real
or an alias. It says Gordon Grant, but who knows? Brandi’s
contacted some friend who’s running it through the computers right
now.”

Damien was silent, and Rafe flicked
at glance at him. The man had narrowed his eyes and appeared to be
thinking.

“You have an idea?”

“If Gordie returned the truck, he
must have stashed Eve somewhere. If we can figure out the elapsed
time, from when he first abducted her to when he returned the tow
truck, we can make an educated guess as to where he might be.”

“I’d say about an hour and a half,
given the time that Reno gave me.”

Damien nodded. He hunkered down and
began to make a rough map in the dirt along the side of the road.
“Gordie abducted Eve here, not far from her car.” Damien made a
large X. “Let’s say half an hour from the point of abduction to
where he hides her, then half an hour back to the abduction spot.”
He traced a line to another location, put a large stone there to
represent where Eve was hidden and then retraced the line back to
the X. “That’s one hour. But then he passes by the point of
abduction and heads straight into town.” Another line was added and
another rock put in place to represent the town. “It’s about twenty
minutes from your place to the gas station. That gives us ten extra
minutes for the time it would take him to remove Eve from the truck
and somehow secure her.”

Rafe studied the crude map. “He’d
be travelling the speed limit, not wanting to draw attention to
himself.”

“Right.” Damien stood up. “Hand me
Brandi’s phone. I can probably pull up a map on it, and we can see
what roads are approximately fifty minutes to an hour’s drive east
of Grassy Hills.”

Chapter 45

Eve took a bite of the burger
Gordie had given her. She didn’t feel like eating but knew it was
important to keep her strength up. He sat in a chair beside the
bed, a small table between them.

“I’m glad to see you eating.”
Gordie beamed at her in approval. “Not everyone is that
sensible.”

Not sure what to say, Eve nodded
and kept chewing. The burger was a tasteless mass in her mouth, but
she forced herself to swallow it.

“I knew the moment I saw you that
we were meant to be together.” He continued conversationally. “I
tried to give you time to figure it out on your own but today, I
knew it was the right time.”

“Why today?”

“I just knew.” He gave a soft
laugh, and the corner of his mouth curled upward. “You see, I’m Fae
as well. Almost full-blooded.” There was a hint of pride in his
voice as he made the statement.