Bind and Keep Me, Book 2 (27 page)

I tossed her the phone. “No, but thanks for sacrificing me. If I get a mouthful of sand your backside will pay.”

She scoffed. “Just don’t get sunburnt.”

Easy for her to say, she was in the shade of an umbrella.

But I jogged down and joined in—diving for the tennis ball and fetching it from the water when it was batted in by a giggling woman in a green bikini. At least I got to watch the women running about with all their bits jiggling. Not bad compensation. By the time the game finished I was well toasted and my neck felt hot. Sunscreen never ever covered the bits you thought it did. I flopped onto the towel beside Jodie.

“Excellent running!” She grinned. “You sure have losing down to a fine art.”

“Brat.”

I stared out over the mostly flat blueness of the ocean. Sea gulls cruised in on the wind and trotted about the beach with wings out-stretched while they squawked at the other birds. The ever-present background roaring roll and surge of the waves had to be the most peaceful sound in the world.

“Beautiful.”

Jodie crept her hand into mine. “Yes, it is. This was a nice day. I’m glad we came.”

“Yeah. Me too.” I looked over at her. “How much longer do you want to stay? Where’s Chris? Does he want to stay much longer?”

“I think he left with someone else. I haven’t seen him for an hour or so.”

“Really?” I sat up. “He was supposed to say if he left with anyone.” Why would he do that? Chris was normally so reliable. Danger seemed to prickle up my spine. Cold, distant, but there waiting.

“I’m pretty sure he has. I saw him walking toward the car park with someone, and then after that, nothing.”

Christ. He’d been talking to Kat. “Have you been looking at the camera app?”

“Yes, last was fifteen minutes ago. No alarms though. Here.”

But as she handed it to me the phone rang. The text message sent a chill through me. “The burglar alarm’s been triggered.”

“Oh no.”

“I’ll check the cameras.” There were three internal ones including the one in the room. The front one showed no movement. The back one was black. Shit.

“The back camera isn’t working.” The prickle sharpened to ice cold.

“Might be a power problem, or it’s broken?” Jodie leaned in, frowning.

“Might be broken. A power surge?” No, the other cameras were working. The fire alarm was too and it hadn’t gone off. “Steph’s still in the room.”

“Maybe reboot the app? You know some of these things have bugs.”

“Maybe.” Coincidence.

I did that, waited a few seconds then restarted it.

But all I saw was black. I stood and searched the crowd. No Chris. I couldn’t see Kat either. Crunch time. Decide what to do.

“Right. We both go look, and we meet back here after we do the left and the right of the crowd. Ask one or two people if they’ve seen him. If not…” I stared at Jodie. “We head straight home.”

After blinking for a second or two, she nodded. “Okay. Or I could phone him?”

“No.” If he was up to no good, that would only warn him.

But as I walked up the bank, I was checking the room camera again. I grabbed Jodie’s arm. “Stop. Now the room camera’s black. We’re going home. Now. If he’s here somewhere he’s going to have to catch a lift back.”

A few minutes later we were in the boat heading back. “Nothing?” I shouted above the throaty roar of the engine

She checked the phone again with the wind blowing her hair backward. “No! Nothing.”

Things had gone bad. Maybe. I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was a coincidence. On the other hand, maybe someone had turned off the cameras and she wasn’t in the room anymore?

“I changed my mind. Phone him.”

“Okay.” Mouth tense, she quick dialed and waited with the phone clamped to her ear, before giving up. Her expression grew ever more worried before she finally lowered the phone. “He’s not answering.”

No one ever said that kidnapping was half the time terrifying and half the time boring. And the rest of the time wondering what evil plans Klaus had in his head. Though evil was a little too far. Jodie was right. He wasn’t all bad, just a fraction, and it was a fraction which seemed to shrink with every extra day that I knew him.

Right now though, what I wanted was for them to come home. How wrong was that? No matter how many times Jodie said she had been in this same situation and come out unscathed, I would never stop worrying. I was locked in, for fuck’s sake. If the cliff crumbled and the house slid off into the sea, I would be inside this room, dead, at the bottom of a pile of rubble being washed by the waves. Why couldn’t they trust me? And let me go?

Then I heard the crunch of footsteps outside the window and I froze. It must be them. It’d been hours.

But when they returned from anywhere, they never came around this side of the house. They came in through the front door and the gate entry was the other side anyway. Who was out there?

More footsteps. Foolishly, or maybe wisely, I kept still and quiet. There was the
spang
sound of metal being tapped and a scrape, and a cell phone was thrust into view through the blades of the outside shutter. Whoever held it had to rearrange their grip when the phone knocked into the window glass. Distantly, I recognised the click of the phone again and again as the phone’s owner took pictures.

Of me, staring back.

Shit.
I hovered, fingers clenching, torn between running to a corner, or under the window, or waving my arms madly and screaming. Terror tightened its grip on my stomach. Whoever was taking photos of the room, they were not Klaus or Jodie. They couldn’t know I was in here, could they? Maybe the picture wouldn’t turn out. Maybe they planned to come in here with an axe and chop me into bloody pieces. Maybe they meant to free me.

My eyes seemed stuck in the open position. What should I do?

I was nervous. So what? I
did
want to be freed. Who wouldn’t?
I’m normal.

With my senses tuned to high alert, standing in the middle of the room, I listened.

The sounds were muffled but I knew them. Someone climbed the back steps—one person, deliberate, and heavy, perhaps. Someone unlocked the back door, came inside and prowled about for a while before making their way down the internal staircase, toward me. There was nothing else down here except for storage, I was pretty certain.

The owner of the foosteps stopped outside my door. The key hung on a cord out there. The handle jiggled then a moment later the key scraped in the lock, and slowly, the door opened.

Crap.

The man who entered was taller than Klaus, more muscular, though his eyes were somehow kinder. Black board shorts. Red t-shirt. The smell of sunscreen. The whitest blond hair I’d ever seen in office-worker hairstyle. He hesitated, murmured a somewhat surprised, “Hello,” then, as carefully as he’d opened it, he shut the door behind him.
He shut the fucking door.
The key was in his hand.

What was this? He could get out again, but I still didn’t have a key. Why had he shut it?

Fear snuggled in next to my heart, cold and scrabbling. A little desperately, I studied his face. Friend or bad guy? What the fuck was he? Who was he? As he drew closer, I backed away into the wall, then waited, shivering, as he came to within a yard of me. His eyes were the lightest of blues, like the blue of a dry summer sky seen through glass.

“Who are you?” I croaked.

“First I need to hear who you are.” Deep assured voice—the opposite to what I’d expected. Hannibal Lector had a nice voice.

Should I say? I opened my mouth to reply and was stuck on the words. Say the wrong ones and Jodie and Klaus might go to prison for a very long time. Maybe me too. “I don’t think I…” I shook my head. “Look, just leave.”

“Leave?” He sounded incredulous.

“Yes. It’s not your house. Leave the door open, and go, and I won’t tell anyone you’ve been here.”

“You won’t? But you want the door open. Nice of you. And naughty of you, hey?” He tsked. “You’re Stephanie.”

Not a question. A statement. I swallowed past the thick lump in my throat and nodded.
Naughty?

He nodded back. “Good. I knew it was you from the picture.”

I dredged up some courage again. “Then open the door, please. I’m being held here against my will.”

“Oh?”

I’d learned ever so well what a man could do to me over these last few weeks. This guy looked stronger than Klaus and his quiet attitude bothered me. Maybe I had a problem with my concept of what was normal—but this was not it. My creepy-crazy detector was going off. He should be jumping up and down about now going, oh my god, it’s you. Are you okay? Let me call the police—all that and more.

But all he did was go over and sit on the BDSM implements chest. “I can see you’re scared of me. You don’t need to be.”

Sure I don’t. I’m only locked in with you
.

“Let’s say I know Klaus. I’m a friend. Actually, I work for him.”

Damn it. Relief flooded me, and that was so, so fucking wrong. Relief? Everything was inside out and back to front. He knew Klaus.

“You know Klaus. That’s such a great fucking recommendation mister whosiewhatsit. So you know he put me in here?” I gestured.

He chuckled. “Call me Chris. Yeah, I do. It’s his house.” His eyes brightened. “I wondered if it was true. Someone told me they thought you were here and they asked me to check. Now that I know though…what do I do about it?”

My reply tumbled out. “Let me go?” Yay, a normal response from me. Gold star.

“Not so easy. Sit down while we talk.”

He pointed at my mattress.

It seemed safer to obey. So I sat cross-legged and tried to look confident. They’d be back soon, and rescue me.

You’re fucked up.
Then I answered myself, seeing I was being dumb.
Yes I know that, shut up.

And
I was being pitiful. I’d automatically trusted Klaus and Jodie more than this guy. But, when I thought about it, I understood their reasons, even if Klaus had done things to me that weren’t done to…that were done…
Simply because he wanted to do them to me? Yes, that.

A frisson of arousal ran through me swift as fire.

I shook myself from my crazy introspection. This guy, Chris, might look handsome and nice, but nasty oozed from him in some strange under-the-surface way.

“Stephanie, you need to tell me what happened so I can figure out if I should open that door for you.” I guess I looked incredulous because he went on. “Like I said, I’m his friend. Look here’s my business card.” He tossed it like a little Frisbee and it skidded to a few feet away.

I leaned over and retrieved it. There was a picture of him on a card and he was listed as Klaus’s partner.

“He must have his reasons. Let me understand why I should release you. Come on. That has to be easy. Unless…what did you do?”

I’d never ever been good at lying. What should I do? Crap, crap, crap. He’s a
friend
.

He’d wrapped his hands over the front edge of the box he sat on and now he drummed his fingers. When I said nothing, he added, “You did something bad, didn’t you? I guess maybe I should leave you here.” He went to rise.

“Wait! No. I mean I did, but it wasn’t that bad.”

After he sat again and waited, I tried to decide what was best. I didn’t know how to say this but I had to try. And I needed to keep in mind that one likely explanation for this man being here after they’d left me alone was that he’d been sent to test me. However not saying anything meant missing an opportunity to go free and I wasn’t doing that.

Damned if I did, maybe damned if I didn’t.

I looked up. “Where do I start?”

“It happened at Leon Edante’s house? The night he died? There.”

I took a breath. “Okay.”

Then Mr. Blue-eyes Chris began to extract my story from me. Though he didn’t threaten, after a while he wore me down and I answered most of his questions. Not in full—I held some facts back. I tried to tell what helped me and yet I also tried to explain how Klaus and Jodie had been involved without making them too terrible.

If I’d said the wrong things, Klaus would be so unhappy if he found out. If I was still trapped in here…

Unhappiness gnawed at me. Maybe I should have held my tongue. But I’d never been good at that.

“Thank you, Stephanie. Now I understand. So. If I open that door, what would you do?” There was genuine curiosity in that question.

Oh. This was promising. “I’d walk out.”

“And? Call the police?” He leaned forward with his legs apart and his arms propped on his thighs in that posture that said male through and through.

That was the zinger of a question.

“Don’t you want to send them both to jail? After all they’ve done to you? Klaus at least?”

I so wanted to tell him to shut up. But instead, I stared at the floor. What did he want me to say? What did I want to say? What should I say in case this was a test? Complicated, so complicated.

“I don’t know.”

“What if you weren’t at risk of being charged, and believe me when I say I think you’d get a big exemption considering what you’ve gone through here.”

I would? Yet how did I know that was the truth? And there was Jodie also. I liked her…a lot. My thoughts ran in circles and I stayed mute while I tried to pin down the right answer.

“Ah. I see. That confusion I can see on your face is fucking amazing.”

I scowled. Creepy bastard. “You’re not letting me go, are you?”

His phone rang and he held up his hand, gesturing sharply to stop me talking. Each of his next growled words struck fear ever deeper into my flesh. “
You
are small.
I
am big and nasty. Believe me when I say that. Don’t speak a single fucking word while I answer this.”

I blinked at him in full Bambi-mode. So much for not being scared of him.

He smiled grimly.

“Hi, Kat. Yes, I’ve looked. I got inside with my key. No, there’s no one here.” He eyed me. I looked at his large thighs and the bulge of his biceps, and I recalled his instructions.

I didn’t need any further incentive. I knew pain, intimately. If I yelled I had a feeling this man would make me disappear yet again, only more permanently. And, oh my god, this wasn’t a test, and from what he’d said he never intended to let me go. I’d spilled everything. If he found out, Klaus would be angry.